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RODMAN 


THE KEEPER 


SOUTHERN SKETCHES. 



CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON, 

AUTHOR OF “CASTLE NOWHERE,” “ TWO WOMEN,” ETC. 



NEW YORK : 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

I, 3, & 5 BOND STREET. 

1880.’ 


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COPYRIGHT BY 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

1880 


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DEDICATED 


TO THE MEMORY 


MY MOTHER 


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PREFACE. 


The sketches included in this volume were writ- 
ten during a residence in the South, which has em- 
braced the greater part of the past six years. As 
far as they go they record real impressions; but 
they, can never give the inward charm of that beau- 
tiful land which the writer has learned to love, and 
from which she now severs herself with true regret. 
Two of these sketches have appeared in the “ At- 
lantic Monthly,” four in “Appletons’ Journal,” and 
one each in “Scribner’s Monthly,” “The Galaxy,” 
“ Lippincott’s Monthly,” and “ Harper’s Magazine.” 

C. F. W. 



a 



CONTENTS 


Rodman the Keeper 
Sister St. Luke 
Miss Elisabetha . 

Old Gardiston 
The South Devil 
In the Cotton Country 
Felipa 
“ Bro.” . 

King David 

Up in the Blue Ridge 


PAGE 

9 

42 

75 

105 

139 

178 

197 

221 

254 

276 






RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


The long years come and go, 

And the Past, 

The sorrowful, splendid Past, 

With its glory and its woe, 

Seems never to have been. 

Seems never to have been ? 

O somber days and grand, 

How ye crowd back once more. 
Seeing our heroes’ graves are green 
By the Potomac and the Cumberland, 
And in the valley of the Shenandoah ! 


When we remember how they died, — 

In dark ravine and on the mountain-side. 
In leaguered fort and fire-encircled town, 
And where the iron ships went down, — 
How their dear lives were spent 
In the weary hospital-tent. 

In the cockpit’s crowded hive, 

it seems 


Ignoble to be alive ! 


Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 


“Keeper of what? Keeper of the dead. Well, it is 
easier to keep the dead than the living ; and as for the gloom 
of the thing, the living among whom I have been lately were 
not a hilarious set.” 

John Rodman sat in the doorway and looked out over his 
domain. The little cottage behind him was empty of life save 
himself alone. In one room the slender appointments pro- 
vided by Government for the keeper, who being still alive 
must sleep and eat, made the bareness doubly bare ; in the 
other the desk and the great ledgers, the ink and pens, the 


io 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


register, the loud-ticking clock on the wall, and the flag folded 
on a shelf, were all for the kept, whose names, in hastily writ- 
ten, blotted rolls of manuscript, were waiting to be transcribed 
in the new red-bound ledgers in the keeper’s best handwriting 
day by day, while the clock was to tell him the hour when the 
flag must rise over the mounds where reposed the bodies of 
fourteen thousand United States soldiers — who had languished 
where once stood the prison-pens, on the opposite slopes, now 
fair and peaceful in the sunset ; who had fallen by the way in 
long marches to and fro under the burning sun ; who had 
fought and died on the many battle-fields that reddened the 
beautiful State, stretching from the peaks of the marble moun- 
tains in the smoky west down to the sea-islands of the ocean 
border. The last rim of the sun’s red ball had sunk below 
the horizon line, and the western sky glowed with deep rose- 
color, which faded away above into pink, into the salmon-tint, 
into shades of that far-away heavenly emerald which the brush 
of the earthly artist can never reproduce, but which is found 
sometimes in the iridescent heart of the opal. The small 
town, a mile distant, stood turning its back on the cemetery ; 
but the keeper could see the pleasant, rambling old mansions, 
each with its rose-garden and neglected outlying fields, the 
empty negro quarters falling into ruin, and everything just as 
it stood when on that April morning the first gun was fired 
on Sumter ; apparently not a nail added, not a brushful of 
paint applied, not a fallen brick replaced, or latch or lock re- 
paired. The keeper had noted these things as he strolled 
through the town, but not with surprise ; for he had seen the 
South in its first estate, when, fresh, strong, and fired with 
enthusiasm, he, too, had marched away from his village home 
with the colors flying above and the girls waving their hand- 
kerchiefs behind, as the regiment, a thousand strong, filed 
down the dusty road. That regiment, a weak, scarred two 
hundred, came back a year later with lagging step and colors 
tattered and scorched, and the girls could not wave their 
handkerchiefs, wet and sodden with tears. But the keeper. 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


1 1 


hi s wo und healed, had gone again ; and he had seen with his 
New England eyes the magnificence and the carelessness of 
the South, her splendor and negligence, her wealth and thrift- 
lessness, as through Virginia and the fair Carolinas, across 
Georgia and into sunny Florida, he had marched month by 
month, first a lieutenant, then captain, and finally major and 
colonel, as death mowed down those above him, and he and 
his good conduct were left. Everywhere magnificence went 
hand in hand with neglect, and he had said so as chance now 
and then threw a conversation in his path. 

“We have no such shiftless ways,” he would remark, after 
he had furtively supplied a prisoner with hard-tack and coffee. 

“And no such grand ones either,” Johnny Reb would re- 
ply, if he was a man of spirit ; and generally he was. 

The Yankee, forced to acknowledge the truth of this state- 
ment, qualified it by observing that he would rather have more 
thrift with a little less grandeur; whereupon the other an- 
swered that he would not ; and there the conversation rested. 
|r So now ex-Colonel Rodman, keeper of the national cemetery, 
viewed the little town in its second estate with philosophic 
eyes. “ It is part of a great problem now working itself out ; 

I am not here to tend the living, but the dead,” he said. 

Whereupon, as he walked among the long mounds, a voice 
seemed to rise from the still ranks below : “ While ye have 
time, do good to men,” it said. “ Behold, we are beyond 
your care.” But the keeper did not heed. 

This still evening in early February he looked out over the 
level waste. The little town stood in the lowlands ; there 
were no hills from whence cometh help — calm heights that 
lift the soul above earth and its cares ; no river to lead the 
aspirations of the children outward toward the great sea. 
Everything was monotonous, and the only spirit that rose ^ 
above the waste was a bitterness for the gained and sorrow ' 
for the lost cause. The keeper was the only man whose 
presence personated the former in their sight, and upon him 
therefore, as representative, the bitterness fell, not in words, 


12 


RODMAN THE KEEPER 


but in averted looks, in sudden silences when he approached, 
in withdrawals and avoidance, until he lived and moved in a 
vacuum ; wherever he went there was presently no one save 
himself ; the very shop-keeper who sold him sugar seemed 
turned into a man of wood, and took his money reluctantly, 
although the shilling gained stood perhaps for that day’s din- 
ner. So Rodman withdrew himself, and came and went 
among them no more ; the broad acres of his domain gave 
him as much exercise as his shattered ankle could bear ; he 
ordered his few supplies by the quantity, and began the life 
of a solitary, his island marked out by the massive granite wall 
with which the United States Government has carefully sur- 
rounded those sad Southern cemeteries of hers ; sad, not so 
much from the number of the mounds representing youth 
and strength cut off in their bloom, for that is but the for- 
tune of war, as for the complete isolation which marks them. 
“Strangers in a strange land” is the thought of all who, 
coming and going to and from Florida, turn aside here and 
there to stand for a moment among the closely ranged graves 
which seem already a part of the past, that near past which 
in our hurrying American life is even now so far away. The 
Government work was completed before the keeper came; 
the lines of the trenches were defined by low granite copings, 
and the comparatively few single mounds were headed by 
trim little white boards bearing generally the word “ Un- 
known,” but here and there a name and an age, in most cases 
a boy from some far-away Northern State ; “ twenty-one,” 
“ twenty-two,” said the inscriptions ; the dates were those 
dark years among the sixties, measured now more than by 
anything else in the number of maidens widowed in heart, and 
women widowed indeed, who sit still and remember, while the 
world rushes by. At sunrise the keeper ran up the stars and 
stripes ; and so precise were his ideas of the accessories be- 
longing to the place, that from his own small store of money 
he had taken enough, by stinting himself, to buy a second 
flag for stormy weather, so that, rain or not, the colors should 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


13 


float over the dead. This was not patriotism so called, or 
rather miscalled, it was not sentimental fancy, it was not zeal 
or triumph ; it was simply a sense of the fitness of things, a 
conscientiousness which had in it nothing of religion, unless 
indeed a man’s endeavor to live up to his own ideal of his duty 
be a religion. The same feeling led the keeper to spend hours 
in copying the rolls. “John Andrew Warren, Company G, 
Eighth New Hampshire Infantry,” he repeated, as he slowly 
wrote the name, giving “John Andrew” clear, bold capitals 
and a lettering impossible to mistake ; “ died August 1 5, 1 863, 
aged twenty-two years. He came from the prison-pen yon- 
der, and lies somewhere in those trenches, I suppose. Now 
then, John Andrew, don’t fancy I am sorrowing for you ; no 
doubt you are better off than I am at this very moment. But 
none the less, John Andrew, shall pen, ink, and hand do their 
duty to you. For that I am here.” 

Infinite pains and labor went into these records of the 
dead ; one hair’s-breadth error, and the whole page was re- 
placed by a new one. The same spirit kept the grass care- 
fully away from the low coping of the trenches, kept the 
graveled paths smooth and the mounds green, and the bare 
little cottage neat as a man-of-war. When the keeper cooked 
his dinner, the door toward the east, where the dead lay, was 
scrupulously closed, nor was it opened until everything was 
in perfect order again. At sunset the flag was lowered, and 
then it was the keeper’s habit to walk slowly up and down 
the path until the shadows veiled the mounds on each side, 
and there was nothing save the peaceful green of earth. “ So 
time will efface our little lives and sorrows,” he mused, “ and 
we shall be as nothing in the indistinguishable past.” Yet 
none the less did he fulfill the duties of every day and hour 
with exactness. “ At least they shall not say that I was lack- 
ing,” he murmured to himself as he thought vaguely of the 
future beyond these graves. Who “they” were, it would 
have troubled him to formulate, since he was one of the many 
sons whom New England in this generation sends forth with 


H 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


a belief composed entirely of negatives. As the season ad- 
vanced, he worked all day in the sunshine. “ My garden 
looks well,” he said. “ I like this cemetery because it is the 
original resting-place of the dead who lie beneath. They 
were not brought here from distant places, gathered up by 
contract, numbered, and described like so much merchandise ; 
their first repose has not been broken, their peace has been 
undisturbed. Hasty burials the prison authorities gave them ; 
the thin bodies were tumbled into the trenches by men almost 
as thin, for the whole State went hungry in those dark days. 
There were not many prayers, no tears, as the dead-carts 
went the rounds. But the prayers had been said, and the 
tears had fallen, while the poor fellows were still alive in the 
pens yonder ; and when at last death came, it was like a re- 
lease. They suffered long ; and I for one believe that there- 
fore shall their rest be long — long and sweet.” 

After a time began the rain,, the soft, persistent, gray rain 
of the Southern lowlands, and he §taid within and copied an- 
other thousand names into the ledger. He would not allow 
himself the companionship of a dog lest the creature should 
bark at night and disturb the quiet. There was no one to 
hear save himself, and it would have been a friendly sound as 
he lay awake on his narrow iron bed, but it seemed to him 
against the spirit of the place. He would not smoke, although 
he had the soldier’s fondness for a pipe. Many a dreary even- 
ing, beneath a hastily built shelter of boughs, when the rain 
poured down and everything was comfortless, he had found 
solace in the curling smoke ; but now it seemed to him that 
'it would be incongruous, and at times he almost felt as if it 
would be selfish too. “ They can not smoke, you know, down 
there under the wet grass,” he thought, as standing at the 
window he looked toward the ranks of the mounds stretching 
across the eastern end from side to side — “ my parade-ground,” 
he called it. And then he would smile at his own fancies, 
draw the curtain, shut out the rain and the night, light his 
lamp, and go to work on the ledgers again. Some of the 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


*5 


names lingered in his memory ; he felt as if he had known 
the men who bore them, as if they had been boys together, 
and were friends even now although separated for a time. 
“ James Marvin, Company B, Fifth Maine. The Fifth Maine 
was in the seven days’ battle. I say, do you remember that 
retreat down the Quaker church road, and the way Phil Kear- 
ney held the rear-guard firm ? ” And over the whole seven 
days he wandered with his mute friend, who remembered 
everything and everybody in the most satisfactory way. One 
of the little head-boards in the parade-ground attracted him 

peculiarly because the name inscribed was his own : “ 

Rodman, Company A, One Hundred and Sixth New York.” 

“I remember that regiment; it came from the extreme 
northern part of the State. Blank Rodman must have melted 
down here, coming as he did from the half-arctic region along 
the St. Lawrence. I wonder what he thought of the first hot 
cfay, say in South Carolina, along those simmering rice-fields ? ” 
He grew into the habit of pausing for a moment by the side 
of this grave every morning and evening. “ Blank Rodman. 
It might easily have been John. And then, where should / 
be?” 

But Blank Rodman remained silent, and the keeper, after 
pulling up a weed or two and trimming the grass over his 
relative, went off to his duties again. “ I am convinced that 
Blank is a relative,” he said to himself; “distant, perhaps, 
but still a kinsman.” 

One April day the heat was almost insupportable ; but the 
sun’s rays were not those brazen beams that sometimes in 
Northern cities burn the air and^ scorch the pavements to a 
white heat ; rather were they soft and still ; the moist earth 
exhaled her richness, not a leaf stirred, and the whole level 
country seemed sitting in a hot vapor-bath. In the early 
dawn the keeper had performed his outdoor tasks, but all day 
he remained almost without stirring in his chair between two 
windows, striving to exist. At high noon out came a little 
black bringing his supplies from the town, whistling and shuf- 


i6 


RODMAN THE KEEPER, 


fling along, gay as a lark. The keeper watched him coming 
slowly down the white road, loitering by the way in the hot 
blaze, stopping to turn a somersault or two, to dangle over a 
bridge rail, to execute various impromptu capers all by him- 
self. He reached the gate at last, entered, and, having come all 
the way up the path in a hornpipe step, he set down his basket 
at the door to indulge in one long and final double-shuffle 
before knocking. “ Stop that ! ” said the keeper through the 
closed blinds. The little darkey darted back ; but as nothing 
further came out of the window — a boot, for instance, or some 
other stray missile — he took courage, showed his ivories, and 
drew near again. “ Do you suppose I am going to have you 
stirring up the heat in that way ? ” demanded the keeper. 

The little black grinned, but made no reply, unless smooth- 
ing the hot white sand with his black toes could be construed 
as such ; he now removed his rimless hat and made a bow. 

“ Is it, or is it not warm ? ” asked the keeper, as a natural- 
ist might inquire of a salamander, not referring to his own so 
much as to the salamander’s ideas on the subject. 

“ Dunno, mars’,” replied the little black. 

“ How do you feel ? ” 

“ 'Spects I feel all right, mars’.” 

The keeper gave up the investigation, and presented to 
the salamander a nickel cent. “ I suppose there is no such 
thing as a cool spring in all this melting country,” he said. 

But the salamander indicated with his thumb a clump of 
trees on the green plain north of the cemetery. “ Ole Mars’ 
Ward’s place — cole spring dah.” He then departed, breaking 
into a run after he had passed the gate, his ample mouth 
watering at the thought of a certain chunk of taffy at the 
mercantile establishment kept by Aunt Dinah in a corner of 
her one-roomed cabin. At sunset the keeper went thirstily 
out with a tin pail on his arm, in search of the cold spring. 
“ If it could only be like the spring down under the rocks 
where I used to drink when I was a boy ! ” he thought. He 
had never walked in that direction before. Indeed, now that 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


7 


he had abandoned the town, he seldom went beyond the walls 
of the cemetery. An old road led across to the clump of 
trees, through fields run to waste, and following it he came to 
the place, a deserted house with tumble-down fences and 
overgrown garden, the out-buildings indicating that once upon 
a time there were many servants and a prosperous master. 
The house was of wood, large on the ground, with encircling 
piazzas; across the front door rough bars had been nailed, 
and the closed blinds were protected in the same manner ; 
from long want of paint the clapboards were gray and mossy, 
and the floor of the piazza had fallen in here and there from 
decay. The keeper decided that his cemetery was a much 
more cheerful place than this, and then he looked around for 
the spring. Behind the house the ground sloped down ; it 
must be there. He went around and came suddenly upon a 
man lying on an old rug outside of a back door. “ Excuse 
me. I thought nobody lived here,” he said. 

“ Nobody does,” replied the man ; “ I am not much of a 
body, am I ? ” 

His left arm was gone, and his face was thin and worn 
with long illness ; he closed his eyes after speaking, as though 
the few words had exhausted him. 

“ I came for water from a cold spring you have here, some- 
where,” pursued the keeper, contemplating the wreck before 
him with the interest of one who has himself been severely 
wounded and knows the long, weary pain. The man waved 
his hand toward the slope without unclosing his eyes, and 
Rodman went off with his pail and found a little shady hol- 
low, once curbed and paved with white pebbles, but now 
neglected, like all the place. The water was cold, however, 
deliciously cold. He filled his pail and thought that perhaps 
after all he would exert himself to make coffee, now that the 
sun was down ; it would taste better made of this cold water. 
When he came up the slope the man’s eyes were open. 

“ Have some water ? ” asked Rodman. 

“ Yes ; there’s a gourd inside.” 


? 


i8 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


The keeper entered, and found himself in a large, bare 
room ; in one corner was some straw covered with an old 
counterpane, in another a table and chair ; a kettle hung in 
the deep fireplace, and a few dishes stood on a shelf ; by the 
door on a nail hung a gourd ; he filled it and gave it to the 
host of this desolate abode. The man drank with eagerness. 

“ Pomp has gone to town,” he said, “ and I could not get 
down to the spring to-day, I have had so much pain.” 

“ And when will Pomp return ? ” 

“ He should be here now ; he is very late to-night.” 

“ Can I get you anything ? ” 

“ No, thank you ; he will soon be here.” 

The keeper looked out over the waste ; there was no one 
in sight. He was not a man of any especial kindliness — he 
had himself been too hardly treated in life for that — but he 
could not find it in his heart to leave this helpless creature all 
alone with night so near. So he sat down on the door-step. 
“ I will rest awhile,” he said, not asking but announcing it. 
The man had turned away and closed his eyes again, and 
they both remained silent, busy with their own thoughts ; for 
each had recognized the ex-soldier, Northern and Southern, in 
portions of the old uniforms, and in the accent. The war 
and its memories were still very near to the maimed, poverty- 
stricken Confederate ; and the other knew that they were, and 
did not obtrude himself. 

Twilight fell, and no one came. 

“ Let me get you something,” said Rodman ; for the face 
looked ghastly as the fever abated. The other refused. 
Darkness came ; still, no one. 

“ Look here,” said Rodman, rising, “ I have been wounded 
myself, was in hospital for months ; I know how you feel. 
You must have food — a cup of tea, now, and a slice of toast, 
brown and thin.” 

“ I have not tasted tea or wheaten bread for weeks,” an- 
swered the man; his voice died off into a wail, as though 
feebleness and pain had drawn the cry from him in spite of 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


l 9 


himself. Rodman lighted a match; there was no candle, 
only a piece of pitch-pine stuck in an iron socket on the 
wall ; he set fire to this primitive torch and looked around. 

“ There is nothing there,” said the man outside, making 
an effort ' to speak carelessly ; “ my servant went to town for 
supplies. Do not trouble yourself to wait ; he will come pres- 
ently, and — and I want nothing.” 

But Rodman saw through proud poverty’s lie ; he knew 
that irregular quavering of the voice, and that trembling of 
the hand ; the poor fellow had but one to tremble. He con- 
tinued his search ; but the bare room gave back nothing, not 
a crumb. 

“ Well, if you are not hungry,” he said, briskly, “ I am, 
hungry as a bear ; and I’ll tell you what I am going to do. I 
live not far from here, and I live all alone too ; I haven’t a 
servant as you have. Let me take supper here with you, just 
for a change ; and, if your servant comes, so much the better, 
he can wait upon us. I’ll run over and bring back the 
things.” 

He was gone without waiting for reply; the shattered 
ankle made good time over the waste, and soon returned, 
limping a little, but bravely hasting, while on a tray came the 
keeper’s best supplies, Irish potatoes, corned beef, wheaten 
bread, butter, and coffee ; for he would not eat the hot bis- 
cuits, the corn-cake, the bacon and hominy of the country, 
and constantly made little New England meals for himself in 
his prejudiced little kitchen. The pine-torch flared in the 
doorway; a breeze had come down from the far mountains 
and cooled the air. Rodman kindled a fire on the cavernous 
he. or+ h. filled the kettle, found a saucepan, and commenced 
op iions, while the other lay outside and watched every 
me Iment in the lighted room. 

/ All ready ; let me help you in. Here we are now ; fried 
Atoes, cold beef, mustard, toast, butter, and tea. Eat, 
A ; and the next time I am laid up you shall come over and 
! k for me.” 


20 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


Hunger conquered, and the other ate, ate as he had not 
eaten for months. As he was finishing a second cup of tea, 
a slow step came around the house ; it was the missing Pomp, 
an old negro, bent and shriveled, who carried a bag of meal 
and some bacon in his basket. “ That is what they live on,” 
thought the keeper. 

He took leave without more words. “ I suppose now I 
can be allowed to go home in peace,” he grumbled to con- 
science. The negro followed him across what was once the 
lawn. “ Fin’ Mars’ Ward mighty low,” he said apologeti- 
cally, as he swung open the gate which still hung between its 
posts, although the fence was down, “ but I hurred and hurred 
as fas’ as I could ; it’s mighty fur to de town. Proud to see 
you, sah ; hope you’ll come again. Fine fambly, de Wards, 
sah, befo’ de war.” 

“ How long has he been in this state ? ” asked the keeper. 

“ Ever sence one ob de las’ battles, sah ; but he’s worse 
sence we come yer, ’bout a mont’ back.” 

“ Who owns the house ? Is there no one to see to him ? 
has he no friends ? ” 

“ House b’long to Mars’ Ward’s uncle ; fine place once, 
befo’ de war ; he’s dead now, and dah’s nobuddy but Miss 
Bettina, an’ she’s gone off somewhuz. Propah place, sah, fur 
Mars’ Ward — own uncle’s house,” said the old slave, loyally 
striving to maintain the family dignity even then. 

“ Are there no better rooms — no furniture ? ” 

“ Sartin ; but — but Miss Bettina, she took de keys ; she 
didn’t know we was cornin’ — ” 

“ You had better'send for Miss Bettina, I think,” said the 
keeper, starting homeward with his tray, washing his hands, 
as it were, of any future responsibility in the aff3 ; *:^' vV \ 

The next day he worked in his garden, for clo£ J 
the sun and exercise was possible ; but, nevertheless, 1 
not forget the white face on the old rug. “ Pshaw ! ” 
to himself, “ haven’t I seen tumble-down old houses ai 
tered human beings before this ? ” 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


21 


At evening came a violent thunderstorm, and the splen- 
dor of the heavens was terrible. “We have chained you, 
mighty spirit,” thought the keeper as he watched the light- 
ning, “ and some time we shall learn the laws of the winds 
and foretell the storms ; then, prayers will no more be offered 
in churches to alter the weather than they would be offered 
now to alter an eclipse. Yet back of the lightning and the 
wind lies the power of the great Creator, just the same.” 

But still into his musings crept, with shadowy persistence, 
the white face on the rug. 

“ Nonsense ! ” he exclaimed ; “ if white faces are going 
around as ghosts, how about the fourteen thousand white 
faces that went under the sod down yonder ? If they could 
arise and walk, the whole State would be filled and no more 
carpet-baggers needed.” So, having balanced the one with 
the fourteen thousand, he went to bed, 

Daylight brought rain — still, soft, gray rain; the next 
morning showed the same, and the third likewise, the nights 
keeping up their part with low-down clouds and steady pat- 
tering on the roof. “ If there was a river here, we should 
have a flood,” thought the keeper, drumming idly on his win- 
dow-pane. Memory brought back the steep New England 
hillsides shedding their rain into the brooks, which grew in a 
night to torrents and filled the rivers so that they overflowed 
their banks ; then, suddenly, an old house in a sunken comer 
of a waste rose before his eyes, and he seemed to sqe the rain 
dropping from a moldy ceiling on the straw where a white 
face lay. 

“ Really, I have nothing else to do to-day, you know,” he 
remarked in an apologetic way to himself, as he and his um- 
brella went along the old road ; and he repeated the remark 
as he entered the room where the man lay, just as he had fan- 
cied, on the damp straw. 

“ The weather is unpleasant,” said the man. “ Pomp, 
bring a chair.” 

Pomp brought one, the only one, and the visitor sat down. 


22 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


A fire smoldered on the hearth and puffed out acrid smoke 
now and then, as if the rain had clogged the soot in the long- 
neglected chimney ; from the streaked ceiling oozing drops 
fell with a dull splash into little pools on the decayed floor ; the 
door would not close ; the broken panes were stopped with 
rags, as if the old servant had tried to keep out the damp ; in 
the ashes a corn-cake was baking. 

“ I am afraid you have not been so well during these long 
rainy days,” said the keeper, scanning the face on the straw. 

“ My old enemy, rheumatism,” answered the man ; “ the 
first sunshine will drive it away.” 

They talked awhile, or rather the keeper talked, for the 
other seemed hardly able to speak, as the waves of pain 
swept over him ; then the visitor went outside and called 
Pomp out. “ Is there any one to help him, or not ? ” he 
asked impatiently. 

“ Fine fambly, befo’ de war,” began Pomp. 

“ Never mind all that ; is there any one to help him now 
— yes or no ? ” 

“ No,” said the old black with a burst of despairing truth- 
fulness. “ Miss Bettina, she’s as poor as Mars’ Ward, an’ 
dere’s no one else. He’s had noth’n but hard corn-cake for 
three days, an’ he can’t swaller it no more.” 

The next morning saw Ward De Rosset lying on the 
white pallet in the keeper’s cottage, and old Pomp, marveling 
at the cleanliness all around him, installed as nurse. A strange 
asylum for a Confederate soldier, was it not ? But he knew 
nothing of the change, which he would have fought with his 
last breath if consciousness had remained ; returning fever, 
however, had absorbed his senses, and then it was that the 
keeper and the slave had borne him slowly across the waste, 
resting many times, but accomplishing the journey at last. 

That evening John Rodman, strolling to and fro in the 
dusky twilight, paused alongside of the other Rodman. “ I 
do not want him here, and that is the plain truth,” he said, 
pursuing the current of his thoughts. “ He fills the house ; 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


2 3 


he and Pomp together disturb all my ways. He’ll be ready 
to fling a brick at me too, when his senses come back ; small 
thanks shall I have for lying on the floor, giving up all my 
comforts, and, what is more, riding over the spirit of the place 
with a vengeance ! ” He threw himself down on the grass 
beside the mound and lay looking up toward the stars, which 
were coming out, one by one, in the deep blue of the South- 
ern night. “ With a vengeance, did I say ? That is it ex- 
actly — the vengeance of kindness. The poor fellow has suf- 
fered horribly in body and in estate, and now ironical Fortune 
throws him in my way, as if saying, ‘ Let us see how far your 
selfishness will yield.' This is not a question of magnanim- 
ity ; there is no magnanimity about it, for the war is over, 
and you Northerners have gained every point for which you 
fought. This is merely a question between man and man ; 
it would be the same if the sufferer was a poor Federal, one 
of the carpet-baggers, whom you despise so, for instance, or 
a pagan Chinaman. And Fortune is right ; don’t you think 
so, Blank Rodman ? I put it to you, now, to one who has 
suffered the extreme rigor of the other side — those prison- 
pens yonder.” 

Whereupon Blank Rodman answered that he had fought 
for a great cause, and that he knew it, although a plain man 
and not given to speech-making ; he was not one of those who 
had sat safely at home all through the war, and now belittled 
it and made light of its issues. (Here a murmur came up 
from the long line of the trenches, as though all the dead had 
cried out.) But now the points for which he had fought 
being gained, and strife ended, it was the plain duty of every 
man to encourage peace. For his part he bore no malice ; he 
was glad, the poor Confederate was up in the cottage, and he 
did not think any the less of the keeper for bringing him 
there. He would like to add that he thought more of him ; 
but he was sorry to say that he was well aware what an ef- 
fort it was, and how almost grudgingly the charity began. 

If Blank Rodman did not say this, at least the keeper im- 


(I 


24 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


agined that he did. “ That is what he would have said,” he 
thought. “ I am glad you do not object,” he added, pretend- 
ing to himself that he had not noticed the rest of the remark. 

“We do not object to the brave soldier who honestly 
fought for his cause, even though he fought on the other 
side,” answered Blank Rodman for the whole fourteen thou- 
sand. “ But never let a coward, a double-face, or a flippant- 
tongued idler walk over our heads. It would make us rise in 
our graves ! ” 

And the keeper seemed to see a shadowy pageant sweep 
by — gaunt soldiers with white faces, arming anew against 
the subtle product of peace : men who said, “ It was no- 
thing ! Behold, we saw it with our eyes ! ” — stay-at-home 
eyes. 

The third day the fever abated, and Ward De Rosset no- 
ticed his surroundings. Old Pomp acknowledged that he 
had been moved, but veiled the locality : “ To a frien’s house, 
Mars’ Ward.” 

“ But I have no friends now, Pomp,” said the weak voice. 

Pomp was very much amused at the absurdity of this. 
“ No frien’s ! Mars’ Ward, no frien’s ! ” He was obliged to 
go out of the room to hide his laughter. The sick man lay 
feebly thinking that the bed was cool and fresh, and the closed 
green blinds pleasant ; his thin fingers stroked the linen sheet, 
and his eyes wandered from object to object. The only thing 
that broke the rule of bare utility in the simple room was a 
square of white drawing-paper on the wall, upon which was 
inscribed in ornamental text the following verse : 

“ Toujours femme varie, 

Bien fou qui s’y fie ; 

Une femme souvent 
N’est qu’une plume au vent.” 

With the persistency of illness the eyes and mind of Ward De 
Rosset went over and over this distich ; he knew something 
of French, but was unequal to the effort of translating ; the 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


25 


rhymes alone caught his vagrant fancy. “ Toujours femme 
vane,” he said to himself over and over again ; and when the 
keeper entered, he said it to him. 

“ Certainly,” answered the keeper; “bien fou qui s’y fie. 
How do you find yourself this morning ? ” 

“I have not found myself at all, so far. Is this your 
house ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Pomp told me I was in a friend’s house,” observed the 
sick man, vaguely. 

“Well, it isn’t an enemy’s. Had any breakfast? No? 
Better not talk, then.” 

He went to the detached shed which served for a kitchen, 
upset all Pomp’s clumsy arrangements, and ordered him out- 
side ; then he set to work and prepared a delicate breakfast 
with his best skill. The sick man eagerly eyed the tray as he 
entered. “ Better have your hands and face sponged off, I 
think,” said Rodman ; and then he propped him up skillfully, 
and left him to his repast. The grass needed mowing on the 
parade-ground ; he shouldered his scythe and started down 
the path, viciously kicking the gravel aside as he walked'. 
“ Wasn’t solitude your principal idea, John Rodman, when 
you applied for this place ? ” he demanded of himself. “ How 
much of it are you likely to have with sick men, and sick 
men’s servants, and so forth ? ” 

The “ and so forth,” thrown in as a rhetorical climax, 
turned into reality and arrived bodily upon the scene — a cli- 
max indeed. One afternoon, returning late to the cottage, he 
found a girl sitting by the pallet — a girl young and dimpled 
and dewy ; one of the creamy roses of the South that, even 
in the bud, are richer in color and luxuriance than any North- 
ern flower. He saw her through the door, and paused ; dis- 
tressed old Pomp met him and beckoned him cautiously out- 
side. “ Miss Bettina,” he whispered gutturally ; “ she’s come 
back from somewhuz, an’ she’s awful mad ’cause Mars’ Ward’s 
here. I tole her all ’bout ’em — de leaks an’ de rheumatiz an’ 


2 


26 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


de hard corn-cake, but she done gone scole me ; and Mars’ 
Ward, he know now whar he is, an’ he mad too.” 

“ Is the girl a fool ? ” said Rodman. He was just begin- 
ning to rally a little. He stalked into the room and confronted 
her. “ I have the honor of addressing — ” # 

“ Miss Ward.” 

“And I am John Rodman, keeper of the national ceme- 
tery.” 

This she ignored entirely ; it was as though he had said, 
“ I am John Jones, the coachman.” Coachmen were useful 
in their way ; but their names were unimportant. 

The keeper sat down and looked at his new visitor. The 
little creature fairly radiated scorn ; her pretty head was thrown 
back, her eyes, dark brown fringed with long dark lashes, 
hardly deigned a glance ; she spoke to him as though he was 
something to be paid and dismissed like any other mechanic. 

“We are indebted to you for some days’ board, I believe, 
keeper — medicines, I presume, and general attendance. My 
cousin will be removed to-day to our own residence ; I wish 
to pay now what he owes.” 

The keeper saw that her dress was old and faded ; the 
small black shawl had evidently been washed and many times 
mended ; the old-fashioned knitted purse she held in her hand 
was lank with long famine. 

“ Very well,” he said ; “if you choose to treat a kindness 
in that way, I consider five dollars a day none too much for 
the annoyance, expense, and trouble I have suffered. Let 
me see : five days — or is it six ? Yes. Thirty dollars, Miss 
Ward.” 

He looked at her steadily ; she flushed. “ The money will 
be sent to you,” she began haughtily ; then, hesitatingly, “ I 
must ask a little time — ” 

“ O Betty, Betty, you know you can not pay it. Why try 
to disguise — But that does not excuse you for bringing me 
here,” said the sick man, turning toward his host with an at- 
tempt to speak fiercely, which ended in a faltering quaver. 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


2 7 


All this time the old slave stood anxiously outside of the 
door ; in the pauses they could hear his feet shuffling as he 
waited for the decision of his superiors. The keeper rose and 
threw open the blinds of the window that looked out on the 
distant parade-ground. “ Bringing you here,” he repeated — 
“ here ; that is my offense, is it ? There they lie, fourteen 
thousand brave men and true. Could they come back to 
earth they would be the first to pity and aid you, now that 
you are down. So would it be with you if the case were 
reversed ; for a soldier is generous to a soldier. It was not 
your own heart that spoke then ; it was the small venom of a 
woman, that here, as everywhere through the South, is play- 
ing its rancorous part.” 

The sick man gazed out through the window, seeing for 
the first time the far-spreading ranks of the dead. He was 
very weak, and the keeper’s words had touched him ; his eyes 
were suffused with tears. But Miss Ward rose with a flash- 
ing glance. She turned her back full upon the keeper and 
ignored his very existence. “ I will take you home imme- 
diately, Ward — this very evening,” she said. 

“ A nice, comfortable place for a sick man,” commented 
the keeper, scornfully. '• I am going out now, De Rosset, to 
prepare your supper ; you had better have one good meal 
before you go.” 

He disappeared, but as he went he heard the sick man 
say, deprecatingly : “ It isn’t very comfortable over at the old 
house now, indeed it isn’t, Betty ; I suffered ” — and the girl’s 
passionate outburst in reply. Then he closed his door and 
set to work. 

When he returned, half an hour later, Ward was lying 
back exhausted on the pillows, and his cousin sat leaning her 
head upon her hand ; she had been weeping, and she looked 
very desolate, he noticed, sitting there in what was to her an 
enemy’s country. Hunger is a strong master, however, es- 
pecially when allied to weakness ; and the sick man ate with 
eagerness. 


28 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


“ I must go back,” said the girl, rising. “ A wagon will 
be sent out for you, Ward ; Pomp will help you.” 

But Ward had gained a little strength as well as obstinacy 
with the nourishing food. “ Not to-night,” he said. 

“ Yes, to-night.” 

“ But I can not go to-night ; you are unreasonable, Bettina. 
To-morrow will do as well, if go I must.” 

“ If go you must ! You do not want to go, then — to go 
to our own home — and with me ” — Her voice broke ; she 
turned toward the door. 

The keeper stepped forward. “ This is all nonsense, Miss 
Ward,” he said, “and you know it. Your cousin is in no 
state to be moved. Wait a week or two, and he can go in 
safety. But do not dare to offer me your money again ; my 
kindness was to the soldier, not to the man, and as such he 
can accept it. Come out and see him as often as you please. 
I shall not intrude upon you. Pomp, take the lady home.” 

And the lady went. 

Then began a remarkable existence for the four : a Con- 
federate soldier lying ill in the keeper’s cottage of a national 
cemetery ; a rampant little rebel coming out daily to a place 
which was to her anathema-maranatha ; a cynical, misan- 
thropic keeper sleeping on the floor and enduring every va- 
riety of discomfort for a man he never saw before — a man 
belonging to an idle, arrogant class he detested ; and an old 
black freedman allowing himself to be taught the alphabet in 
order to gain permission to wait on his master — master no 
longer in law — with all the devotion of his loving old heart. 
For the keeper had announced to Pomp that he must learn 
his alphabet or go ; after all these years of theory, he, as a 
New-Englander, could not stand by and see precious knowl- 
edge shut from the black man. So he opened it, and mighty 
dull work he found it. 

Ward De Rosset did not rally as rapidly as they expected. 
The white-haired doctor from the town rode out on horseback, 
pacing slowly up the graveled roadway with a scowl on his 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


29 


brow, casting, as he dismounted, a furtive glance down to- 
ward the parade-ground. His horse and his coat were alike 
old and worn, and his broad shoulders were bent with long 
service in the miserably provided Confederate hospitals, where 
he had striven to do his duty through every day and eveiy 
night of those shadowed years. Cursing the incompetency in 
high places, cursing the mismanagement of the entire medical 
department of the Confederate army, cursing the recklessness 
and indifference which left the men suffering for want of 
proper hospitals and hospital stores, he yet went on resolutely 
doing his best with the poor means in his control until the 
last. Then he came home, he and his old horse, and went 
the rounds again, he prescribing for whooping-cough or mea- 
sles, and Dobbin waiting outside ; the only difference was 
that fees were small and good meals scarce for both, not only 
for the man but for the beast. The doctor sat down and 
chatted awhile kindly with De Rosset, whose father and uncle 
had been dear friends of his in the bright, prosperous days ; 
then he left a few harmless medicines and rose to go, his gaze 
resting a moment on Miss Ward, then on Pomp, as if he were 
hesitating. But he said nothing until on the wal^outside he 
met the keeper, and recognized a person to whom he could 
tell the truth. “ There is nothing to be done ; he may recov- 
er, he may not ; it is a question of strength merely. He needs 
no medicines, only nourishing food, rest, and careful tendance.” 

“ He shall have them,” answered the keeper briefly. And 
then the old gentleman mounted his horse and rode away, his 
first and last visit to a national cemetery. 

“ National ! ” he said to himself — “ national ! ” 

All talk of moving De Rosset ceased, but Miss Ward 
moved into the old house. There was not much to move : 
herself, her one trunk, and Mari, a black attendant, whose 
name probably began life as Maria, since the accent still dwelt 
on the curtailed last syllable. The keeper went there once, and 
once only, and then it was an errand for the sick man, whose 
fancies came sometimes at inconvenient hours — when Pomp 


3 ° 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


had gone to town, for instance. On this occasion the keeper 
entered the mockery of a gate and knocked at the front door, 
from which the bars had been removed ; the piazza still showed 
its decaying planks, but quick-growing summer vines had been 
planted, and were now encircling the old pillars and veiling all 
defects with their greenery. It was a woman’s pathetic effort 
to cover up what can not be covered — poverty. The blinds on 
one side were open, and white curtains waved to and fro in the 
breeze ; into this room he was ushered by Mari. Matting lay 
on the floor, streaked here and there ominously by the damp- 
ness from the near ground. The furniture was of dark ma- 
hogany, handsome in its day : chairs, a heavy pier-table with 
low-down glass, into which no one by any possibility could 
look unless he had eyes in his ankles, a sofa with a stiff round 
pillow of hair-cloth under each curved end, and a mirror with 
a compartment framed off at the top, containing a picture of 
shepherds and shepherdesses, and lambs with blue ribbons 
around their necks, all enjoying themselves in the most natu- 
ral and life-like manner. Flowers stood on the high mantel- 
piece, but their fragrance could not overcome the faint odor 
of the damp straw-matting. On a table were books — a life 
of General Lee, and three or four shabby little volumes printed 
at the South during the war, waifs of prose and poetry of that 
highly wrought, richly colored style which seems indigenous 
to Southern soil. 

“ Some way, the whole thing reminds me of a funeral,” 
thought the keeper. 

Miss Ward entered, and the room bloomed at once ; at 
least that is what a lover would have said. Rodman, how- 
ever, merely noticed that she bloomed, and not the room, and 
he said to himself that she would not bloom long if she contin- 
ued to live in such a moldy place. Their conversation in these 
days was excessively polite, shortened to the extreme mini- 
mum possible, and conducted without the aid of the eyes, at 
least on one side. Rodman had discovered that Miss Ward 
never looked at him, and so he did not look at her — that is, 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


31 


not often ; he was human, however, and she was delightfully 
pretty. On this occasion they exchanged exactly five sen- 
tences, and then he departed, but not before his quick eyes 
had discovered that the rest of the house was in even worse 
condition than this parlor, which, by the way, Miss Ward con- 
sidered quite a grand apartment ; she had been down near 
the coast, trying to teach school, and there the desolation was 
far greater than here, both armies having passed back and 
forward over the ground, foragers out, and the torch at work 
more than once. 

“Will there ever come a change for the better? ” thought 
the keeper, as he walked homeward. “ What an enormous 
stone has got to be rolled up hill ! But at least, John Rod- 
man, you. need not go to work at it ; you are not called upon 
to lend your shoulder.” 

None the less, however, did he call out Pomp that very 
afternoon and sternly teach him “ E ” and “ F,” using the 
smooth white sand for a blackboard, and a stick for chalk. 
Pomp’s primer was a Government placard hanging on the 
wall of the office. It read as follows : 

IN THIS CEMETERY REPOSE THE REMAINS 
OF 

FOURTEEN THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE 
UNITED STATES SOLDIERS. 

“ Tell me not in mournful numbers 
Life is but an empty dream ; 

For the soul is dead that slumbers, 

And things are not what they seem. 

“ Life is real ! Life is earnest ! 

And the grave is not its goal ; 

Dust thou art, to dust retumest, 

Was not written of the soul ! ” 

“ The only known instance of the Government’s conde- 
scending to poetry,” the keeper had thought, when he first 
read this placard. It was placed there for the instruction and 


32 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


edification of visitors; but, no visitors coming, he took the 
liberty of using it as a primer for Pomp. The large letters 
served the purpose admirably, and Pomp learned the entire 
quotation ; what he thought of it has not transpired. Miss 
Ward came over daily to see her cousin. At first she brought 
him soups and various concoctions from her own kitchen — 
the leaky cavern, once the dining-room, where the soldier 
had taken refuge after his last dismissal from hospital ; but 
the keeper’s soups were richer, and free from the taint of 
smoke ; his martial laws of neatness even disorderly old Pomp 
dared not disobey, and the sick man soon learned the differ- 
ence. He thanked the girl, who came bribing the dishes 
over carefully in her own dimpled hands, and then, when she 
was gone, he sent them untasted away. By chance Miss 
Ward learned this, and wept bitter tears over it ; she con- 
tinued to come, but her poor little soups and jellies she 
brought no more. 

One morning in May the keeper was working near the 
flag-staff, when his eyes fell upon a procession coming down 
the road which led from the town and turning toward . the 
cemetery. No one ever came that way : what could it mean ? 
It drew near, entered the gate, and showed itself to be negroes 
walking two and two — old uncles and aunties, young men and 
girls, and even little children, all dressed in their best ; a very 
poor best, sometimes gravely ludicrous imitations of “ ole 
mars’ ” or “ ole miss’,” sometimes mere rags bravely patched 
together and adorned with a strip of black calico or rosette of 
black ribbon ; not one was without a badge of mourning. All 
carried flowers, common blossoms from the little gardens be- 
hind the cabins that stretched around the town on the out- 
skirts — the new forlorn cabins with their chimneys of piled 
stones and ragged patches of corn ; each little darkey had his 
bouquet and marched solemnly along, rolling his eyes around, 
but without even the beginning of a smile, while the elders 
moved forward with gravity, the bubbling, irrepressible gayety 
of the negro subdued by the new-born dignity of the freedman. 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


33 


" Memorial Day,” thought the keeper.; “ I had forgotten it.” 

“ Will you do us de hono’, sah, to take de head ob de pro- 
cessio’, sah ? ” said the leader, with a ceremonious bow. Now, 
the keeper had not much sympathy with the strewing of flow- 
ers, North or South ; he had seen the beautiful ceremony more 
than once turned into a political demonstration. Here, how- 
ever, in this small, isolated, interior town, there was nothing 
of that kind ; the whole population of white faces laid their 
roses and wept true tears on the graves of their lost ones in 
the village churchyard when the Southern Memorial Day came 
round, and just as naturally the whole population of black 
faces went out to*the national cemetery with their flowers on 
the day when, throughout the North, spring blossoms were 
laid on the graves of the soldiers, from the little Maine village 
to the stretching ranks of Arlington, from Greenwood to the 
far Western burial-places of San Francisco. The keeper 
joined the procession and led the way to the parade-ground. 
As they approached the trenches, the leader began singing 
and all joined. “ Swing low, sweet chariot,” sang the freed- 
men, and their hymn rose and fell with strange, sweet harmony 
— one of those wild, unwritten melodies which the North heard 
with surprise and marveling when, after the war, bands of 
singers came to their cities and sang the songs of slavery, in 
order to gain for their children the coveted education. “ Swing 
low, sweet chariot,” sang the freedmen, and two by two they 
passed along, strewing the graves with flowers till all the 
green was dotted with color. It was a pathetic sight to see 
some of the old men and women, ignorant field-hands, bent, 
dull-eyed, and past the possibility of education even in its 
simplest forms, carefully placing their poor flowers to the best 
advantage. They knew dimly that the men who lay beneath 
those mounds had done something wonderful for them and 
for their children ; and so they came bringing their blossoms, 
with little intelligence but with much love. 

The ceremony over, they retired. As he turned, the keeper 
caught a glimpse of Miss Ward’s face at the window. 


34 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


“ Hope we 's not makin’ too free, sah,” said the leader, as 
the procession, with many a bow and scrape, took leave, “ but 
we ’s kep’ de day now two years, sah, befo’ you came, sah, an 
we ’s teachin’ de chil’en to keep it, sah.” 

The keeper returned to the cottage. “ Not a white face,” 
he said. 

“ Certainly not,” replied Miss Ward, crisply. 

“ I know some graves at the North, Miss Ward, graves of 
Southern soldiers, and I know some Northern women who do 
not scorn to lay a few flowers on the lonely mounds as they 
pass by with their blossoms on our Memorial Day.” 

“ You are fortunate. They must be angels. We have no 
angels here.” 

“ I am inclined to believe you are right,” said the keeper. 

That night old Pomp, who had remained invisible in the 
kitchen during the ceremony, stole away in the twilight and 
came back with a few flowers. Rodman saw him going down 
toward the parade-ground, and watched. The old man had 
but a few blossoms ; he arranged them hastily on the mounds 
with many a furtive glance toward the house, and then stole 
back, satisfied ; he had performed his part. 

Ward De Rosset lay on his pallet, apparently unchanged ; 
he seemed neither stronger nor weaker. He had grown 
childishly dependent upon his host, and wearied for him, as 
the Scotch say ; but Rodman withstood his fancies, and gave 
him only the evenings, when Miss Bettina was not there. 
One afternoon, however, it rained so violently that he was 
forced to seek shelter ; he set himself to work on the ledgers ; 
he was on the ninth thousand now. But the sick man heard 
his step in the outer room, and called in his weak voice, 
“ Rodman, Rodman.” After a time he went in, and it ended 
in his staying ; for the patient was nervous and irritable, and 
he pitied the nurse, who seemed able to please him in nothing. 
De Rosset turned with a sigh of relief toward the strong 
hands that lifted him readily, toward the composed manner, 
toward the man’s voice that seemed to bring a breeze from 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


35 



outside into the close room ; animated, cheered, he talked 
volubly. The keeper listened, answered once in a while, and 
quietly took the rest of the afternoon into his own hands. 
Miss Ward yielded to the silent change, leaned back, and 
closed her eyes. She looked exhausted and for the first time 
pallid ; the loosened dark hair curled in little rings about her 
temples, and her lips were parted as though she was too tired 
to close them ; for hers were not the thin, straight lips that 
shut tight naturally, like the straight line of a closed box. 
The sick man talked on. “ Come, Rodman,” he said, after a 
while, “ I have read that lying verse of yours over at least ten 
thousand and fifty-nine times; please tell me its history; I 
want to have something definite to think of when I read it for 
the ten thousand and sixtieth.” 

“ Toujours femme varie, 

Bien fou qui s’y fie ; 

Une femme sou vent 
N’est qu’une plume au vent,” 

read the keeper slowly, with his execrable English accent. 
“ Well, I don’t know that I have any objection to telling the 
story. I am not sure but that it will do me good to hear it 
all over myself in plain language again.” 

“ Then it concerns yourself,” said De Rosset ; “ so much 
the better. I hope it will be, as the children say, the truth, 
and long.” 

“ It will be the truth, but not long. When the war broke 
out I was twenty-eight years old, living with my mother on 
our farm in New England. My father and two brothers had 
died and left me the homestead ; otherwise I should have 
broken away and sought fortune farther westward, where the 
lands are better and life is more free. But mother loved the 
house, the fields, and every crooked tree. She was alone, and 
so I staid with her. In the center of the village green stood 
the square, white meeting-house, and near by the small cot- 
tage where the pastor lived ; the ministers daughter, Mary, 


3 ^ 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


was my promised wife. Mary was a slender little creature 
with a profusion of pale flaxen hair, large, serious blue eyes, 
and small, delicate features ; she was timid almost to a fault ; 
her voice was low and gentle. She was not eighteen, and we 
were to wait a year. The war came, and I volunteered, of 
course, and marched away ; we wrote to each other often ; 
my letters were full of the camp and skirmishes ; hers told of 
the village, how the widow Brown had fallen ill, and how it 
was feared that Squire Stafford’s boys were lapsing into evil 
ways. Then came the day when my regiment marched to 
the field of its slaughter, and soon after our shattered remnant 
went home. Mary cried over me, and came out every day to 
the farmhouse with her bunches of violets ; she read aloud 
to me from her good little books, and I used to lie and watch 
her profile bending over the page, with the light falling on her 
flaxen hair low down against the small, white throat. Then 
my wound healed, and I went again, this time for three years ; 
and Mary’s father blessed me, and said that when peace came 
he would call me son, but not before, for these were no times 
for marrying or giving in marriage. He was a good man, a 
red-hot abolitionist, and a roaring lion as regards temperance ; 
but nature had made him so small in body that no one was 
much frightened when he roared. I said that I went for three 
years; but eight years have passed and I have never been 
back to the village. First, mother died. Then Mary turned 
false. I sold the farm by letter and lost the money three 
months afterward in an unfortunate investment ; my health 
failed. Like many another Northern soldier, I remembered 
the healing climate of the South ; its soft airs came back to 
me when the snow lay deep on the fields and the sharp wind 
whistled around the poor tavern where the moneyless, half- 
crippled volunteer sat coughing by the fire. I applied for this 
place and obtained it. That is all.” 

“ But it is not all,” said the sick man, raising himself on 
his elbow ; “ you have not told half yet, nor anything at all 
about the French verse.” 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


37 


“ Oh— that ? There was a little Frenchman staying at the 
hotel ; he had formerly been a dancing-master, and was full 
of dry, withered conceits, although he looked like a thin and 
bilious old ape dressed as a man. He taught me, or tried to 
teach me, various wise sayings, among them this one, which 
pleased my fancy so much that I gave him twenty-five cents 
to write it out in large text for me." 

“ Toujours femme varie," repeated De Rosset ; “but you 
don’t really think so, do you, Rodman ? " 

“ I do. But they can not help it ; it is their nature.— I 
beg your pardon, Miss Ward. I was speaking as though you 
were not here." 

Miss Ward’s eyelids barely acknowledged his existence ; 
that was all. But some time after she remarked to her cousin 
that it was only in New England that one found that pale 
flaxen hair. 

June was waning, when suddenly the summons came. 
Ward De Rosset died. He was unconscious toward the last, 
and death, in the guise of sleep, bore away his soul. They 
carried him home to the old house, and from there the funeral 
started, a few family carriages, dingy and battered, following 
the hearse, for death revived the old neighborhood feeling ; 
that honor at least they could pay — the sonless mothers and 
the widows who lived shut up in the old houses with every- 
thing falling into ruin around them, brooding over the past. 
The keeper watched the small procession as it passed his gate 
on its way to the churchyard in the village. " There he goes, 
poor fellow, his sufferings over at last,” he said ; and then he 
set the cottage in order and began the old solitary life again. 

He saw Miss Ward but once. 

It was a breathless evening in August, when the moon- 
light flooded the level country. He had started out to stroll 
across the waste ; but the mood changed, and climbing over 
the eastern wall he had walked back to the flag-staff, and now 
lay at its foot gazing up into the infinite sky. A step sounded 
on the gravel-walk ; he turned his face that way, and recog- 


38 


RODMAN THE KEEPER . 


nized Miss Ward. With confident step she passed the dark 
cottage, and brushed his arm with her robe as he lay unseen 
in the shadow. She went down toward the parade-ground, 
and his eyes followed her. Softly outlined in the moonlight, 
she moved to and fro among the mounds, pausing often, and 
once he thought she knelt. Then slowly she returned, and 
he raised himself and waited; she saw him, started, then 
paused. 

“ I thought you were away,” she said ; “ Pomp told me 
so.” 

“You set him to watch me?” 

“ Yes. I wished to come here once, and I did not wish to 
meet you.” 

“Why did you wish to come ? ” 

“ Because Ward was here — and because — because — never 
mind. It is enough that I wished to walk once among those 
mounds.” 

“ And pray there ? ” 

“ Well — and if I did ! ” said the girl defiantly. 

Rodman stood facing her, with his arms folded ; his eyes 
rested on her face ; he said nothing. 

“ I am going away to-morrow,” began Miss Ward again, 
assuming with an effort her old, pulseless manner. “ I have 
sold the place, and I shall never return, I think ; I am going 
far away.” 

“ Where ? ” 

“ To Tennessee.” 

“ That is not so very far,” said the keeper, smiling. 

“ There I shall begin a new existence,” pursued the voice, 
ignoring the comment. 

“ You have scarcely begun the old ; you are hardly more 
than a child, now. What are you going to do in Tennes- 
see ? ” 

“ Teach.” 

“ Have you relatives there ? ” 

“ No.” 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


39 


“ A miserable life — a hard, lonely, loveless life,” said Rod- 
man. “ God help the woman who must, be that dreary thing, 
a teacher from necessity ! ” 

Miss Ward turned swiftly, but the keeper kept by her side. 
He saw the tears glittering on her eyelashes, and his voice 
softened. “ Do not leave me in anger,” he said ; " I should 
not have spoken so, although indeed it was the truth. Walk 
back with me to the cottage, and take your last look at the 
room where poor Ward died, and then I will go with you to 
your home.” 

“ No ; Pomp is waiting at the gate,” said the girl, almost 
inarticulately. 

“ Very well ; to the gate, then.” 

They went toward the cottage in silence; the keeper 
threw open the door. “ Go in,” he said. “ I will wait out- 
side.” 

The girl entered and went into the inner room, throwing 
herself down upon her knees at the bedside. “ O Ward, 
Ward ! ” she sobbed ; “ I am all alone in the world now, 
Ward — all alone ! ” She buried her face in her hands and 
gave way to a passion of tears; and the keeper could not 
help but hear as he waited outside. Then the desolate little 
creature rose and came forth, putting on, as she did so, her 
poor armor of pride. The keeper had not moved from the 
door-step. Now he turned his face. “Before you go — go 
away for ever from this place — will you write your name in 
my register,” he said — “ the visitors’ register ? The Govern- 
ment had it prepared for the throngs who would visit these 
graves ; but with the exception of the blacks, who can not 
write, no one has come, and the register is empty. Will you 
write your name ? Yet do not write it unless you can think 
gently of the men who lie there under the grass. I believe 
you do think gently of them, else why have you come of your 
own accord to stand by the side of their graves ? ” As he 
said this, he looked fixedly at her. 

Miss Ward did not answer ; but neither did she write. 


4 ° 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


“Very well,” said the keeper; “come away. You will 
not, I see.” 

« I can not ! Shall I, Bettina Ward, set my name down 
in black and white as a visitor to this cemetery, where lie 
fourteen thousand of the soldiers who killed my father, my 
three brothers, my cousins ; who brought desolation upon all 
our house, and ruin upon all our neighborhood, all our State, 
and all our country ? — for the South is our country, and not 
your North. Shall I forget these things ? Never ! Sooner 
let my right hand wither by my side ! I was but a child ; yet 
I remember the tears of my mother, and the grief of all 
around us. There was not a house where there was not one 
dead.” 

“ It is true,” answered the keeper ; “ at the South, all 
went.” 

They walked down to the gate together in silence. 

“ Good-by,” said John, holding out his hand; “you will 
give me yours or not as you choose, but I will not have it as a 
favor.” 

She gave it. 

“ I hope that life will grow brighter to you as the years 
pass. May God bless you ! ” 

He dropped her hand ; she turned, and passed through 
the gateway ; then he sprang after her. 

“Nothing can change you,” he said ; “ I know it, I have 
known it all along ; you are part of your country, part of the 
time, part of the bitter hour through which she is passing. 
Nothing can change you ; if it could, you would not be what 
you are, and I should not — But you can not change. Good- 
by, Bettina, poor little child — good-by. Follow your path out 
into the world. Yet do not think, dear, that I have not seen 
— have not understood.” 

He bent and kissed her hand ; then he was gone, and she 
went on alone. 

A week later the keeper strolled over toward the old 
house. It was twilight, but the new owner was still at work. 


RODMAN THE KEEPER. 


4 


He was one of those sandy-haired, energetic Maine men, 
who, probably on the principle of extremes, were often found 
through the South, making new homes for themselves in the 
pleasant land. 

“ Pulling down the old house, are you ? ” said the keeper, 
leaning idly on the gate, which was already flanked by a new 
fence. 

“ Yes,” replied the Maine man, pausing ; “ it was only an 
old shell, just ready to tumble on our heads. You’re the 
keeper over yonder, an’t you ? ” (He already knew everybody 
within a circle of five miles.) 

“ Yes. I think I should like those vines if you have no 
use for them,” said Rodman, pointing to the uprooted green- 
ery that once screened the old piazza. 

“ Wuth about twenty-five cents, I guess,” said the Maine 
man, handing them over. 


SISTER ST. LUKE 


She lived shut in by flowers and trees, 

And shade of gentle bigotries ; 

On this side lay the trackless sea, 

On that the great world’s mystery ; 

But, all unseen and all unguessed, 

They could not break upon her rest. 

The world’s far glories flamed and flashed, 

Afar the wild seas roared and dashed ; 

But in her small dull paradise, 

Safe housed from rapture or surprise, 

Nor day nor night had power to fright 
The peace of God within her eyes. 

John Hay. 


They found her there. “ This is more than I expected,’' 
said Carrington as they landed — “ seven pairs of Spanish eyes 
at once." 

“ Three pairs," answered Keith, fastening the statement 
to fact and the boat to a rock in his calm way ; “ and one if 
not two of the pairs are Minorcan." 

The two friends crossed the broad white beach toward 
the little stone house of the light-keeper, who sat in the door- 
way, having spent the morning watching their sail cross over 
from Pelican reef, tacking lazily east and west — an event of 
more than enough importance in his isolated life to have kept 
him there, gazing and contented, all day. Behind the broad 
shoulders of swarthy Pedro stood a little figure clothed in 
black ; and as the man lifted himself at last and came down 
to meet them, and his wife stepped briskly forward, they saw 
that the third person was a nun — a large-eyed, fragile little 
creature, promptly introduced by Melvyna, the keeper’s wife, 


S/S TER ST. LUKE. 


43 


as “Sister St. Luke.” For the keeper’s wife, in spite of her 
black eyes, was not a Minorcan ; not even a Southerner. 
Melvyna Sawyer was born in Vermont, and, by one of the 
strange chances of this vast, many-raced, motley country of 
ours, she had traveled south as nurse — and a very good, en- 
ergetic nurse too, albeit somewhat sharp-voiced — to a delicate 
young wife, who had died in the sunny land, as so many of 
them die ; the sun, with all his good will and with all his 
shining, not being able to undo in three months the work of 
long years of the snows and bleak east winds of New Eng- 
land. 

The lady dead, and her poor thin frame sent northward 
again' to lie in the hillside churchyard by the side of bleak 
Puritan ancestors, Melvyna looked about her. She hated the 
lazy tropical land, and had packed her calf-skin trunk to go, 
when Pedro Gonsalvez surprised her by proposing' matrimony. 
At least that is what she wrote to her aunt Clemanthy, away 
in Vermont; and, although Pedro may not have used the 
words, he at least meant the fact, for they were married two 
weeks later by a justice of the peace, whom Melvyna’s sharp 
eyes had unearthed, she of course deeming the padre of the 
little parish and one or two attendant priests as so much dust 
to be trampled energetically under her shoes, Protestant and 
number six and a half double-soled mediums. The justice 
of the peace, a good-natured old gentleman who had forgot- 
ten that he held the office at all, since there was no demand 
for justice and the peace was never broken, married them as 
well as he could in a surprised sort of way ; and, instead of 
receiving a fee, gave one, which Melvyna, however, promptly 
rescued from the bridegroom’s willing hand, and returned 
with the remark that there was no “call for alms” (pro- 
nounced as if rhymed with hams), and that two shilling, or 
mebbe three, she guessed, would be about right for the job. 
This sum she deposited on the table, and then took leave, 
walking off with a quick, enterprising step, followed by her 
acquiescent and admiring bridegroom. He had remained ac- 


44 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


quiescent and admiring ever since, and now, as lighthouse- 
keeper on Pelican Island, he admired and acquiesced more 
than ever ; while Melvyna kept the house in order, cooked his 
dinners, and tended his light, which, although only third-class, 
shone and glittered under her daily care in the old square 
tower which was founded by the Spaniards, heightened by 
the English, and now finished and owned by the United 
States, whose Lighthouse Board said to each other every now 
and then that really they must put a first-class Fresnel on 
Pelican Island and a good substantial tower instead of that 
old-fashioned beacon. They did so a year or two later ; and 
a hideous barber’s pole it remains to the present day. But 
when Carrington and Keith landed there the square tower 
still stood in its gray old age at the very edge of the ocean, 
so that high tides swept the step of the keeper’s house. It 
was originally a lookout where the Spanish soldier stood and 
fired his culverin when a vessel came in sight outside the reef ; 
then the British occupied the land, added a story, and placed 
an iron grating on the top, where their coastguardsman lighted 
a fire of pitch-pine knots that flared up against the sky, with 
the tidings, “ A sail ! a sail ! ” Finally the United States 
came into possession, ran up a third stoiy, and put in a re- 
volving light, one flash for the land and two for the sea — a 
proportion unnecessarily generous now to the land, since no- 
thing came in any more, and everything went by, the little 
harbor being of no importance since the indigo culture had 
failed. But ships still sailed by on their way to the Queen of 
the Antilles, and to the far Windward and Leeward Islands, 
and the old light went on revolving, presumably for their 
benefit. The tower, gray and crumbling, and the keeper’s 
house, were surrounded by a high stone wall with angles 
and loopholes — a small but regularly planned defensive 
fortification built by the Spaniards ; and odd enough it 
looked there on that peaceful island, where there was no- 
thing to defend. But it bore itself stoutly nevertheless, this 
ancient little fortress, and kept a sharp lookout still over 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


45 

the ocean for the damnable Huguenot sail of two centuries 
before. 

The sea had encroached greatly on Pelican Island, and 
sooner or later it must sweep the keeper’s house away ; but 
now it was a not unpleasant sensation to hear the water wash 
against the step — to sit at the narrow little windows and 
watch the sea roll up, roll up, nearer and nearer, coming all 
the way landless in long surges from the distant African 
coast, only to never quite get at the foundations, of that stub- 
born little dwelling, which held its own against them, and 
then triumphantly watched them roll back, roll back, depart- 
ing inch by inch down the beach, until, behold ! there was a 
magnificent parade-ground, broad enough for a thousand feet 
to tread — a floor more fresh and beautiful than the marble 
pavements of palaces. There were not a thousand feet to 
tread there, however; only six. For Melvyna had more than 
enough to do within the house, and Pedro never walked save 
across the island to the inlet once in two weeks or so, when 
he managed to row over to the village, and return with sup- 
plies, by taking two entire days for it, even Melvyna having 
given up the point, tacitly submitting to loitering she could 
not prevent, but recompensing herself by a general cleaning 
on those days of the entire premises, from the top of the 
lantern in the tower to the last step in front of the house. 

You could not argue with Pedro. He only smiled back 
upon you as sweetly and as softly as molasses. Melvyna, en- 
deavoring to urge him to energy, found herself in the position 
of an active ant wading through the downy recesses of a 
feather bed, which well represented his mind. 

Pedro was six feet two inches in height, and amiable as a 
dove. His wife sensibly accepted him as he was, and he had 
his two days in town — a very mild dissipation, however, since 
the Minorcans are too indolent to do anything more than 
smoke, lie in the sun, and eat salads heavily dressed in oil. 
They said, “ The serene and august wife of our friend is well, 
we trust ? ” and, “ The island— does it not remain lonely ? ” 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


46 

and then the salad was pressed upon him again. For they 
all considered Pedro a man of strange and varied experiences. 
Had he not married a woman of wonder — of an energy un- 
fathomable ? And he lived with her alone in a lighthouse, 
on an island ; alone, mind you, without a friend or relation 
near ! 

The six feet that walked over the beautiful beach of the 
southern ocean were those of Keith, Carrington, and Sister 
St. Luke. 

“Now go, Miss Luke,” Melvyna had said, waving her en- 
ergetically away with the skimmer as she stcfod irresolute at 
the kitchen door. “ ’Twill do you a power of good, and 
they’re nice, quiet gentlemen who will see to you, and make 
things pleasant. Bless you, I know what they are. They 
ain’t none of the miserable, good-for-nothing race about here ! 
Your convent is fifty miles off, ain’t it? And besides, you 
were brought over here half dead for me to cure up — now, 
warn’t you ? ” 

The Sister acknowledged that she was, and Melvyna went 

on : 

“You see, things is different up North, and I understand 
’em, but you don’t. Now you jest go right along and hev a 
pleasant walk, and I’ll hev a nice bowl of venison broth ready 
for you when you come back. Go right along now.” The 
skimmer waved again, and the Sister went. 

“Yes, she’s taken the veil, and is a nun for good and all,” 
explained Melvyna to her new guests the evening of their 
arrival, when the shy little Sister had retreated to her own 
room above. “ They thought she was dying, and she was so 
long about it, and useless on their hands, that they sent her 
up here to the village for sea air, and to be red of her, I guess. 
’Tany rate, there she was in one of them crowded, dirty old 
houses, and so — I jest brought her over here. To tell the 
truth, gentlemen — the real bottom of it — my baby died last 
year — and — and Miss Luke she was so good I’ll never forget 
it. I ain’t a Catholic — fur from it ; I hate 'em. But she seen 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


47 


us coming up from the boat with our little coffin, and she 
came out and brought flowers to lay on it, and followed to 
the grave, feeble as she was ; and she even put in her little 
black shawl, because the sand was wet — this miserable half- 
afloat land, you know— and I couldn’t bear to see the coffin 
set down into it. And I said to myself then that I’d never 
hate a Catholic again, gentlemen. I don’t love ’em yet, and 
don’t know as I ever shell; but Miss Luke, she’s different. 
Consumption? Well, I hardly know. She’s a sight better 
than she was when she come. I’d like to make her well again, 
and, someway, I can’t help a-trying to, for I was a nurse by 
trade once. But then what’s the use ? She’ll only hev to go 
back to that old convent ! ” And Melvyna clashed her pans 
together in her vexation. “ Is she a good Catholic, do you 
say ? Heavens and earth, yes ! She’s that religious — my ! 
I couldn’t begin to tell ! She believes every word of all that 
rubbish those old nuns have told her. She thinks it’s beauti- 
ful to be the bride of heaven ; and, as far as that goes, I don’t 
know but she’s right : ’tain’t much the other kind is wuth,” 
pursued Melvyna, with fine contempt for mankind in general. 
“ As to freedom, they’ve as good as shoved her off their hands, 
haven’t they ? And I guess I can do as I like any way on my 
own island. There wasn’t any man about their old convent, 
as I can learn, and so Miss Luke, she hain’t been taught to 
run away from ’em like most nuns. Of course, if they knew, 
they would be sending over here after her ; but they don’t 
know, and them priests in the village are too fat and lazy to 
earn their salt, let alone caring what has become of her. I 
guess, if they think of her at all, they think that she died, and 
that they buried her in their crowded, sunken old graveyard. 
They’re so slow and sleepy that they forget half the time who 
they’re burying ! But Miss Luke, she ought to go out in the 
air, and she is so afraid of everything that it don’t do her no 
good to go alone. I haven’t got the time to go; and so, if 
you will let her walk along the beach with you once in a while, 
it will do her a sight of good, and give her an appetite— al- 


4 8 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


though what I want her to hev an appetite for I am sure I 
don’t know ; for, ef she gets well, of course she’ll go back to 
the convent. Want to go? That she does. She loves the 
place, and feels lost and strange anywhere else. She was 
taken there when she was a baby, and it is all the home she 
has. She doesn’t know they wanted to be red of her, and she 
wouldn’t believe it ef I was to tell her forty times. She loves 
them all dearly, and prays every day to go back there. Span- 
ish ? Yes, I suppose so ; she don’t know herself what she is 
exactly. She speaks English well though, don’t she ? Yes, 
Sister St. Luke is her name ; and a heathenish name it is for 
a woman, in my opinion. / call her Miss Luke. Convert 
her ? Couldn’t any more convert her than you could convert 
a white gull, and make a land-bird of him. It’s his nature to 
ride on the water and be wet all the time. Towels couldn’t 
dry him — not if you fetched a thousand ! ” 

“ Our good hostess is a woman of discrimination, and 
sorely perplexed, therefore, over her protegde ,” said Keith, as 
the two young men sought their room, a loft under the peaked 
roof, which was to be their abode for some weeks, when they 
were not afloat. “ As a nurse she feels a professional pride 
in curing, while as a Calvinist she would almost rather kill 
than cure, if her patient is to go back to the popish convent. 
But the little Sister looks very fragile. She will probably save 
trouble all round by fading away.” 

“ She is about as faded now as a woman can be,” answered 
Carrington. 

The two friends, or rather companions, plunged into all 
the phases of the southern ocean with a broad, inhaling, ex- 
panding delight which only a physique naturally fine, or care- 
fully trained, can feel. George Carrington was a vigorous 
young Saxon, tall and broad, feeling his life and strength in 
every vein and muscle. Each night he slept his eight hours 
dreamlessly, like a child, and each day he lived four hours in 
one, counting by the pallid hours of other men. Andrew 
Keith, on the other hand, represented the physique cultured 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


49 


and trained up to a high point by years of attention and care. 
He was a slight man, rather undersized, but his wiry strength 
was more than a match for Carrington’s bulk, and his finely 
cut face, if you would but study it, stood out like a cameo by 
the side of a ruddy miniature in oils. The trouble is that but 
few people study cameos. He was older than his companion, and 
“ one of those quiet fellows, you know,” said the world. The 
two had never done or been anything remarkable in their lives. 
Keith had a little money, and lived as he pleased, while Carring- 
ton, off now on a vacation, was junior member of a firm in 
which family influence had placed him. Both were city men. 

“ You absolutely do not know how to walk, senora,” said 
Keith. “ I will be doctor now, and you must obey me. Never 
mind the crabs, and never mind the jelly-fish, but throw back 
your head and walk off briskly. Let the wind blow in your 
face, and try to stand more erect.” 

“You are doctor? They told me, could I but see one, 
well would I be,” said the Sister. “ At the convent we have 
only Sister Inez, with her small and old medicines.” 

“ Yes, I think I may call myself doctor,” answered Keith 
gravely. “ What do you say, Carrington ? ” 

“ Knows no end. Miss, Miss — Miss Luke — I should say, 
Miss St. Luke. I am sure I do not know why I should stum- 
ble over it when St. John is a common enough name,” an- 
swered Carrington, who generally did his thinking aloud. 

“ No end ? ” repeated the little Sister inquiringly. “ But 
there is an end in this evil world to all things.” 

“ Never mind what he says, senora,” interrupted Keith, 
“ but step out strongly and firmly, and throw back your head. 
There now, there are no crabs in sight, and the beach is hard 
as a floor. Try it with me : one, two ; one, two.” 

So they treated her, partly as a child, partly as a gentle 
being of an inferior race. It was a new amusement, although 
a rather mild one Carrington said, to instruct this unformed, 
timid mind, to open the blinded eyes, and train the ignorant 
ears to listen to the melodies of nature. 

3 


5 ° 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


“ Do you not hear ? It is like the roll of a grand organ,” 
said Keith as they sat on the door-step one evening at sunset. 
The sky was dark ; the wind had blown all day from the north 
to the south, and frightened the little Sister as she toiled at 
her lace-work, made on a cushion in the Spanish fashion, her 
lips mechanically repeating prayers meanwhile ; for never had 
they such winds at the inland convent, embowered in its 
orange-trees. Now, as the deep, low roll of the waves sounded 
on the shore, Keith, who was listening to it with silent enjoy- 
ment, happened to look up and catch the pale, repressed ner- 
vousness of her face. 

“ Oh, not like an organ,” she murmured. “ This is a fear- 
ful sound ; but an organ is sweet — soft and sweet. When 
Sister Teresa plays the evening hymn it is like the sighing of 
angels.” 

“ But your organ is probably small, senora.” 

“We have not thought it small. It remains in our chapel, 
by the window of arches, and below we walk, at the hour of 
meditation, from the lime-tree to the white-rose bush, and 
back again, while the music sounds above. We have not 
thought it small, but large — yes, very large.” 

“Four feet long, probably,” said Carrington, who was 
smoking an evening pipe, now listening to the talk awhile, 
now watching the movements of two white heron who were 
promenading down the beach. “ I saw the one over in the 
village church. It was about as long as this step.” 

“ Yes,” said the Sister, surveying the step, “it is about as 
long as that. It is a very large organ. 

“Walk with me down to the point,” said Keith — “just 
once and back again.” 

The docile little Sister obeyed ; she always did immedi- 
ately whatever they told her to do. 

“ I want you to listen now ; stand still and listen — listen 
to the sea,” said Keith, when they had turned the point and 
stood alone on the shore. “Try to think only of the pure, 
deep, blue water, and count how regularly the sound rolls up 


SISTER ST. LUKE . 


5 


in long, low chords, dying away and then growing louder, 
dying away and then growing louder, as regular as your own 
breath. Do you not hear it ? ” 

“ Yes,” said the little Sister timorously. 

“ Keep time, then, with your hand, and let me see whether 
you catch the measure.” 

So the small brown hand, nerveless and slender, tried to 
mark and measure the roar of the great ocean surges, and at 
last succeeded, urged on by the alternate praises and rebukes 
of Keith, who watched with some interest a faint color, rise in 
the pale oval face, and an intent listening look come into the 
soft, unconscious eyes, as, for the first time, the mind caught 
the mighty rhythm of the sea. She listened, and listened, 
standing mute, with head slightly bent and parted lips. 

“ I want you to listen to it in that way every day,” said 
Keith, as he led the way back. “ It has different voices : 
sometimes a fresh, joyous song, sometimes a faint, loving 
whisper; but always something. You will learn in time to 
love it, and then it will sing to you all day long.” 

“ Not at the dear convent ; there is no ocean there.” 

“You want to go back to the convent ? ” 

“ Oh, could I go ! could I go ! ” said the Sister, not impa- 
tiently, but with an intense yearning in her low voice. “ Here, 
so lost, so strange am I, so wild is everything. But I must 
not murmur ” ; and she crossed her hands upon her breast 
and bowed her head. 

The two young men led a riotous life ; they rioted with the 
ocean, with the winds, with the level island, with the sunshine 
and the racing clouds. They sailed over to the reef daily and 
plunged into the surf ; they walked for miles along the beach, 
and ran races over its white floor ; they hunted down the cen- 
ter of the island, and brought back the little brown deer who 
lived in the low thicket on each side of the island’s backbone. 
The island was twenty miles long and a mile or two broad, 
with a central ridge of shell-formed rock about twenty feet in 


5 * 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


height, that seemed like an Appalachian chain on the level 
waste ; below, in the little hollows on each side, spread a low 
tangled thicket, a few yards wide ; and all the rest was barren 
sand, with movable hills here and there — hills a few feet in 
height, blown up by the wind, and changed in a night. The 
only vegetation besides the thicket was a rope-like vine that 
crept over the sand, with few leaves far apart, and now and 
then a dull purple blossom — a solitary tenacious vine of the 
desert, satisfied with little, its growth slow, its life monoto- 
nous ; yet try to tear it from the surface of the sand, where its 
barren length seems to lie loosely like an old brown rope 
thrown down at random, and behold, it resists you stub- 
bornly. You find a mile or two of it on your hands, clinging 
and pulling as the strong ivy clings to a stone wall ; a giant 
could not conquer it, this seemingly dull and half-dead thing ; 
and so you leave it there to creep on in its own way, over the 
damp, shell-strewn waste. One day Carrington came home 
in great glory ; he had found a salt marsh. “ Something be- 
sides this sand, you know — a stretch of saw-grass away to 
the south, the very place for fat ducks. And somebody has 
been there before us, too, for I saw the mast of a sail-boat 
some distance down, tipped up against the sky.” 

“ That old boat is ourn, I guess,” said Melvyna. “ She 
drifted down there one high tide, and Pedro he never would 
go for her. She was a mighty nice little boat, too, ef she was 
cranky.” 

Pedro smiled amiably back upon his spouse, and helped 
himself to another hemisphere of pie. He liked the pies, al- 
though she was obliged to make them, she said, of such out- 
landish things as figs, dried oranges, and pomegranates. “If 
you could only see a pumpkin, Pedro,” she often remarked, 
shaking her head. Pedro shook his back in sympathy ; but, 
in the mean time, found the pies very good as they were. 

“ Let us go down after the boat,” said Carrington. “ You 
have only that old tub over at the inlet, Pedro, and you really 
need another boat.” (Carrington always liked to imagine 


SIS TER ST. LUKE. 


53 

that he was a constant and profound help to the world at 
large.) “ Suppose anything should happen to the one you 
have ? ” Pedro had not thought of that ; he slowly put down 
his knife and fork to consider the subject. 

“We will go this afternoon," said Keith, issuing his orders, 
“ and- you shall go with us, senora.” 

“ And Pedro, too, to help you," said Melvyna. “ I’ve al- 
ways wanted that boat back, she was such a pretty little 
thing : one sail, you know, and decked over in front ; you sat 
on the bottom. I’d like right well to go along myself; but I 
suppose I’d better stay at home and cook a nice supper for 
you." 

Pedro thought so, decidedly. 

When the February sun had stopped blazing down directly 
overhead, and a few white afternoon clouds had floated over 
from the east to shade his shining, so that man could bear it, 
the four started inland toward the backbone ridge, on whose 
summit there ran an old trail southward, made by the fierce 
Creeks three centuries before. Right up into the dazzling 
light soared the great eagles — straight up, up to the sun, their 
unshrinking eyes fearlessly fixed full on his fiery ball. 

“ It would be grander if we did not know they had just 
stolen their dinners from the poor hungry fish-hawks over 
there on the inlet," said Carrington. 

Sister St. Luke had learned to walk quite rapidly now. 
Her little black gown trailed lightly along the sand behind 
her, and she did her best to “ step out boldly," as Keith di- 
rected ; but it was not firmly, for she only succeeded in mak- 
ing a series of quick, uncertain little paces over the sand like 
bird-tracks. Once Keith had taken her back and made her 
look at her own uneven footsteps. “ Look — no two the same 
distance apart," he said. The little Sister looked and was 
very much mortified. “ Indeed, I will try with might to do 
better," she said. And she did try with might; they saw 
her counting noiselessly to herself as she walked, “ One, two ; 
one, two." But she had improved so much that Keith now 


54 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


devoted his energies to teaching her to throw back her head 
and look about her. “ Do you not see those soft banks of 
clouds piled up in the west ? ” he said, constantly directing 
her attention to objects above her. But this was a harder 
task, for the timid eyes had been trained from childhood to 
look down, and the head was habitually bent, like a pendant 
flower on its stem. Melvyna had deliberately laid hands 
upon the heavy veil and white band that formerly encircled 
the small face. “ You can not breathe in them,” she said. 
But the Sister still wore a light veil over the short dark hair, 
which would curl in little rings upon her temples in spite of 
her efforts to prevent it ; the cord and heavy beads and cross 
encircled her slight waist, while the wide sleeves of her nun’s 
garb fell over her hands to the finger-tips. 

“ How do you suppose she would look dressed like other 
women ? ” said Carrington one day. The two men were 
drifting in their small yacht, lying at ease on the cushions, 
and smoking. 

“Well,” answered Keith slowly, “if she was well dressed 
— very well, I mean, say in the French style — and if she had 
any spirit of her own, any vivacity, you might, with that dark 
face of hers and those eyes — you might call her piquant.” 

“ Spirit ? She has not the spirit of a fly,” said Carring- 
ton, knocking the ashes out of his pipe and fumbling in an 
embroidered velvet pouch, one of many offerings at his shrine, 
for a fresh supply of the strong aromatic tobacco he affected, 
Keith meanwhile smoking nothing but the most delicate ciga- 
rettes. “ The other day I heard a wild scream ; and rushing 
down stairs I found her half fainting on the steps, all in a 
little heap. And what do you think it was ? She had been 
sitting there, lost in a dream — mystic, I suppose, like St. Agnes — 
Deep on the convent roof the snows 
Are sparkling to the moon : 

My breath to heaven like vapor goes. 

May my soul follow soon — 
and that sort of thing.” 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


55 


“No,” said Keith, “ there is nothing mystical about the 
Luke maiden ; she has never even dreamed of the ideal ec- 
stasies of deeper minds. She says her little prayers simply, 
almost mechanically, so many every day, and dwells as it 
were content in the lowly valleys of religion.” 

“ Well, whatever she was doing,” continued Carrington, 
“ a great sea crab had crawled up and taken hold of the toe 
of her little shoe. Grand tableau — crab and Luke maiden ! 
And the crab had decidedly the better of it.” 

“ She is absurdly timid,” admitted Keith. 

And absurdly timid she was now, when, having crossed 
the stretch of sand and wound in and out among the low 
hillocks, they came to the hollow where grew the dark green 
thicket, through which they must pass to reach the Appala- 
chian range, the backbone of the island, where the trail gave 
them an easier way than over the sands. Carrington went 
first and hacked out a path with his knife ; Keith followed j 
and held back the branches ; the whole distance was not 
more than twelve feet ; but its recesses looked dark and 
shadowy to the little Sister, and she hesitated. 

“ Come, said Carrington ; “ we shall never reach the salt 
marsh at this rate.” 

“ There is nothing dangerous here, senora,” said Keith. 
“ Look, you can see for yourself. And there are three of us 
to help you.” 

“ Yes,” said Pedro — “ three of us.” And he swung his 
broad bulk into the gap. 

Still she hesitated. 

“ Of what are you afraid ? ” called out Carrington impa- 
tiently. 

“ I know not, indeed,” she answered, almost in tears over 
her own behavior, yet unable to stir. Keith came back, and 
saw that she was trembling — not violently, but in a subdued, 
helpless sort of way which was pathetic in its very causeless- 
ness. 

“ Take her up, Pedro,” he ordered ; and, before she could 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


56 

object, the good-natured giant had borne her in three strides 
through the dreaded region, and set her down safely upon 
the ridge. She followed them humbly now, along the safe 
path, trying to step firmly, and walk with her head up, as 
Keith had directed. Carrington had already forgotten her 
again, and even Keith was eagerly looking ahead for the first 
glimpse of green. 

“ There is something singularly fascinating in the stretph 
of a salt marsh,” he said. “ Its level has such a far sweep 
as you stand and gaze across it, and you have a dreamy feel- 
ing that there is no end to it. The stiff, drenched grasses 
hold the salt which the tide brings in twice a day, and you 
inhale that fresh, strong, briny odor, the rank, salt, invigorat- 
ing smell of the sea ; the breeze that blows across has a tang 
to it like the snap of a whip-lash across your face, bringing 
the blood to the surface, and rousing you to a quicker pace. 

“ Ha ! ” said Carrington ; “ there it is. Don’t you see the 
green? A little farther on, you will see the mast of the 
boat.” 

“That is all that is wanted,” said Keith. “A salt marsh 
is not complete without a boat tilted up aground somewhere, 
with its slender dark mast outlined against the sky. A boat 
sailing along in a commonplace way would blight the whole 
thing ; what we want is an abandoned craft, aged and desert- 
ed, aground down the marsh with only its mast rising above 
the waste.” 

“ Bien! there it is,” said Carrington ; “ and now the ques- 
tion is, how to get to it.” 

“ You two giants will have to go,” said Keith, finding a 
comfortable seat. “ I see a mile or two of tall wading be- 
fore us, and up to your shoulders is over my head. I went 
duck-shooting with that man last year, senora. ‘Come on,’ - 
he cried — ‘splendid sport ahead, old fellow; come on.’ 

“ ‘ Is it deep ? ’ I asked from behind. I was already up 
to my knees, and could not see bottom, the water was so 
dark. 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


57 

“ ‘ Oh, no, not at all ; just right,’ he answered, striding 
ahead. * Come on.’ 

“ I came ; and went in up to my eyes.” 

But the senora did not smile. 

“ You know Carrington is taller than I am,” explained 
Keith, amused by the novelty of seeing his own stories fall flat. 

“ Is he ? ” said the Sister vaguely. 

It was evident that she had not observed whether he was 
or not. 

Carrington stopped short, and for an instant stared blankly 
at her. What every one noticed and admired all over the 
country wherever he went, this little silent creature had not 
even seen ! 

“ He will never forgive you,” said Keith laughing, as the 
two tall forms strode off into the marsh. Then, seeing that 
she did not comprehend in the least, he made a seat for her 
by spreading his light coat on the Appalachian chain, and, 
leaning back on his elbow, began talking to her about the 
marsh. “Breathe in the strong salt,” he said, “ and let your 
eyes rest on the green, reedy expanse. Supposing you were 
painting a picture, now — does any one paint pictures at your 
convent ? ” 

“ Ah, yes,” said the little nun, rousing to animation at 
once. “ Sister St. James paints pictures the most beautiful 
on earth. She painted for us Santa Inez with her lamb, and 
Santa Rufina of Sevilla, with her palms and earthen vases.” 

“ And has she not taught you to paint also ? ” 

“ Me ! Oh, no. I am only a Sister young and of no gifts. 
Sister St. James is a great saint, and of age she has seventy 
years.” 

“ Not requisites for painting, either of them, that I am 
aware,” said Keith. “ However, if you were painting this 
marsh, do you not see how the mast of that boat makes the 
feature of the landscape the one human element; and yet, 
even that abandoned, merged as it were in the desolate wild- 
ness of the scene ? ” 


58 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


The Sister looked over the green earnestly, as if trying to 
see all that he suggested. Keith talked on. He knew that 
he talked well, and he did not confuse her with more than 
one subject, but dwelt upon the marsh ; stories of men who 
had been lost in them, of women who had floated down in 
boats and never returned; descriptions clear as etchings; 
studies of the monotone of hues before them — one subject 
pictured over and over again, as, wishing to instruct a child, 
he would have drawn with a chalk one letter of the alphabet 
a hundred times, until the wandering eyes had learned at last 
to recognize and know it. 

“ Do you see nothing at all, feel nothing at all ?” he said. 
“ Tell me exactly.” 

Thus urged, the Sister replied that she thought she did 
feel the salt breeze a little. 

“ Then take off that shroud and enjoy it,” said Keith, ex- 
tending his arm suddenly, and sweeping off the long veil by 
the corner that was nearest to him. 

“ Oh ! ” said the little Sister — “ oh ! ” and distressfully she 
covered her head with her hands, as if trying to shield herself 
from the terrible light of day. But the veil had gone down 
into the thicket, whither she dared not follow. She stood ir- 
resolute. 

“ I will get it for you before the others come back,” said 
Keith. “ It is gone now, howeyer, and, what is more, you 
could not help it ; so sit down, like a sensible creature, and 
enjoy the breeze.” 

The little nun sat down, and confusedly tried to be a sen- 
sible creature. Her head, with its short rings of dark hair, 
rose childlike from the black gown she wore, and the breeze 
swept freshly over her ; but her eyes were full of tears, and 
her face so pleading in its pale, silent distress, that at length 
Keith went down and brought back the veil. 

“ See the cranes flying home,” he said, as the long line 
dotted the red of the west. “ They always seem to be flying 
right into the sunset, sensible birds ! ” 


SISTER ST. LUKE . 


59 


The little Sister had heard that word twice now ; evidently 
the cranes were more sensible than she. She sighed as she 
fastened on the veil ; there were a great many hard things 
out in the world, then, she thought. At the dear convent it 
was not expected that one should be as a crane. 

The other two came back at length, wet and triumphant, 
with their prize. They had stopped to bail it out, plug its 
cracks, mend the old sail after a fashion, and nothing would 
do but that the three should sail home in it, Pedro, for whom 
there was no room, returning by the way they had come. 
Carrington, having worked hard, was determined to carry out 
his plan ; and said so. 

“ A fine plan to give us all a wetting,” remarked Keith. 

“You go down there and work an hour or two yourself, 
and see how you like it,” answered the other, with the irrele- 
vance produced by aching muscles and perspiration dripping 
from every pore. 

This conversation had taken place at the edge of the 
marsh where they had brought the boat up through one of 
the numerous channels. 

“ Very well,” said Keith. “ But mind you, not a word 
about danger before the Sister. I shall have hard enough 
work to persuade her to come with us as it is.” 

He went back to the ridge, and carelessly suggested re- 
turning home by water. 

“ You will not have to go through the thicket then,” he 
said. 

Somewhat to his surprise, Sister St. Luke consented im- 
mediately, and followed without a word as he led the way. 
She was mortally afraid of the water, but, during his absence, 
she had been telling her beads, and thinking with contrition 
of two obstinacies in one day — that of the thicket and that of 
the veil — she could not, she would not have three. So, com- 
mending herself to all the saints, she embarked. 

“ Look here, Carrington, if ever you inveigle me into such 
danger again for a mere fool’s fancy, I will show you what I 


6o 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


think of it. You knew the condition of that boat, and I did 
not,” said Keith, sternly, as the two men stood at last on the 
beach in front of the lighthouse. The Sister had gone 
within, glad to feel land underfoot once more. She had sat 
quietly in her place all the way, afraid of the water, of the 
wind, of everything, but entirely unconscious of the real dan- 
ger that menaced them. For the little craft would not mind 
her helm ; her mast slipped about erratically ; the planking at 
the bow seemed about to give way altogether ; and they were 
on a lee shore, with the tide coming in, and the surf beating 
roughly on the beach. They were both good sailors, but it 
had taken all they knew to bring the boat safely to the light- 
house. 

“ To tell the truth, I did not think she was so crippled,” 
said Carrington. “ She really is a good boat for her size.” 

“ Very,” said Keith sarcastically. 

But the younger man clung to his opinion ; and, in order to 
verify it, he set himself to work repairing the little craft. You 
would have supposed his daily bread depended upon her be- 
ing made seaworthy, by the way he labored. She was made 
over from stem to stem : a new mast, a new sail ; and, finally, 
scarlet and green paint were brought over from the village, 
and out she came as brilliant as a young paroquet. Then 
Carrington took to sailing in her. Proud of his handy work, 
he sailed up and down, over to the reef, and up the inlet, and 
even persuaded Melvyna to go with him once, accompanied 
by the meek little Sister. 

“ Why shouldn’t you both learn how to manage her ? ” he 
said in his enthusiasm. “She’s as easy to manage as a 
child — ” 

“ And as easy to tip over,” replied Melvyna, screwing up 
her lips tightly and shaking her head. “ You don’t catch me 
out in her again, sure’s as my name’s Sawyer.” 

For Melvyna always remained a Sawyer in her own mind, 
in spite of her spouse’s name ; she could not, indeed, be any- 
thing else — noblesse oblige. But the Sister, obedient as usual, 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


61 


bent her eyes in turn upon the ropes, the mast, the sail, and 
the helm, while Carrington, waxing eloquent over his favorite 
science, delivered a lecture upon their uses, and made her ex- 
periment a little to see if she comprehended. He used the 
simplest words for her benefit, words of one syllable, and un- 
consciously elevated his voice somewhat, as though that would 
make her understand better ; her wits seemed to him always 
of the slowest. The Sister followed his directions, and imi- 
tated his motions with painstaking minuteness. She did 
very well until a large porpoise rolled up his dark, glistening 
back close alongside, when, dropping the sail-rope with a 
scream, she crouched down at Melvyna’s feet and hid her face 
in her veil. Carrington from that day could get no more pas- 
sengers for his paroquet boat. But he sailed up and down 
alone in his little craft, and, when that amusement palled, he 
took the remainder of the scarlet and green paint and adorned 
the shells of various sea-crabs and other crawling things, so 
that the little Sister was met one afternoon by a whole proces- 
sion of unearthly creatures, strangely variegated, proceeding 
gravely in single file down the beach from the pen where they 
had been confined. Keith pointed out to her, however, the 
probability of their being much admired in their own circles 
as long as the hues lasted, and she was comforted. 

They strolled down the beach now every afternoon, some- 
times two, sometimes three, sometimes four when Melvyna 
had no cooking to watch, no bread to bake ; for she rejected 
with scorn the omnipresent hot biscuit of the South, and kept 
her household supplied with light loaves in spite of the diffi- 
culties of yeast. Sister St. Luke had learned to endure the 
crabs, but she still fled from the fiddlers when they strayed 
over from their towns in the marsh ; she still went carefully 
around the great jelly-fish sprawling on the beach, and re- 
garded from a safe distance the beautiful blue Portuguese 
men-of-war, stranded unexpectedly on the dangerous shore, 
all their fair voyagings over. Keith collected for her the bril- 
liant sea-weeds, little flecks of color on the white sand, and 


62 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


showed her their beauties ; he made her notice all the varieties 
of shells, enormous conches for the tritons to blow, and beds 
of wee pink ovals and cornucopias, plates and cups for the 
little web-footed fairies. Once he came upon a sea-bean. 

“ It has drifted over from one of the West Indian islands,” 
he said, polishing it with his handkerchief — “one of the 
islands — let us say Miraprovos — a palmy tropical name, bring- 
ing up visions of a volcanic mountain, vast cliffs, a tangled 
gorgeous forest, and the soft lapping wash of tropical seas. 
Is it not so, sefiora ? ” 

But the sefiora had never heard of the West Indian 
Islands. Being told, she replied : “ As you say it, it is so. 
There is, then, much land in the world ? ” 

“ If you keep the sea-bean for ever, good will come,” said 
Keith, gravely presenting it ; “ but, if after having once ac- 
cepted it you then lose it, evil will fall upon you.” 

The Sister received the amulet with believing reverence. 
“ I will lay it up before the shrine of Our Lady,” she said, 
carefully placing it in the little pocket over her heart, hidden 
among the folds of her gown, where she kept her most pre- 
cious treasures — a bead of a rosary that had belonged to some 
saint who lived somewhere some time, a little faded prayer 
copied in the handwriting of a young nun who had died some 
years before and whom she had dearly loved, and a list of her 
own most vicious faults, to be read over and lamented daily ; 
crying evils such as a perverse and insubordinate bearing, a 
heart froward and evil, gluttonous desires of the flesh, and a 
spirit of murderous rage. These were her own ideas of her- 
self, written down at the convent. Had she not behaved her- 
self perversely to the Sister Paula, with whom one should be 
always mild on account of the affliction which had sharpened 
her tongue ? Had she not wrongfully coveted the cell of the 
novice Felipa, because it looked out upon the orange walk ? 
Had she not gluttonously longed for more of the delectable 
marmalade made by the aged Sanchita ? And, worse than 
all, had she not, in a spirit of murderous rage, beat the yellow 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


6 3 


cat with a palm-branch for carrying off the young doves, her 
especial charge ? “ Ah, my sins are great indeed,” she sighed 
daily upon her knees, and smote her breast with tears. 

Keith watched the sea-bean go into the little heart-pocket 
almost with compunction. Many of these amulets of the 
sea, gathered during his winter rambles, had he bestowed 
with formal warning of their magic powers, and many a fair 
hand had taken them, many a soft voice had promised to 
keep them “ for ever.” But he well knew they would be mis- 
laid and forgotten in a day. The fair ones well knew it too, 
and each knew that the other knew, so no harm was done. 
But this sea-bean, he thought, would have a different fate — 
laid up in some little nook before the shrine, a witness to the 
daily prayers of the simple-hearted little Sister. “ I hope they 
may do it good,” he thought vaguely. Then, reflecting that 
even the most depraved bean would not probably be much 
affected by the prayers, he laughed off the fancy, yet did not 
quite like to think, after all, that the prayers were of no use. 
Keith’s religion, however, was in the primary rocks. 

Far down the beach they came upon a wreck, an old and 
long hidden relic of the past. The low sand-bluff had caved 
away suddenly and left a clean new side, where, imbedded in 
the lower part, they saw a ponderous mast. “ An old Span- 
ish galleon,” said Keith, stooping to examine the remains. “ I 
know it by the curious bolts. They ran ashore here, broad- 
side on, in one of those sudden tornadoes they have along 
this coast once in a while, I presume. Singular ! This was 
my very place for lying in the sun and letting the blaze scorch 
me with its clear scintillant splendor. I never imagined I was 
lying on the bones of this old Spaniard.” 

“ God rest the souls of the sailors ! ” said the Sister, mak- 
ing the sign of the cross. 

“ They have been in — wherever they are, let us say, for 
about three centuries now,” observed Keith, “ and must be 
used to it, good or bad.” 

“ Nay ; but purgatory, senor.” 


6 4 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


“ True. I had forgotten that,” said Keith. 

One morning there came up a dense, soft, southern-sea 
fog, “ The kind you can cut with a knife,” Carrington said. 
It lasted for days, sweeping out to sea at night on the land 
breeze, and lying in a gray bank low down on the horizon, 
and then rolling in again in the morning enveloping the water 
and the island in a thick white cloud which was not mist and 
did not seem damp even, so freshly, softly salt was the feeling 
it gave to the faces that went abroad in it. Carrington and 
Keith, of course, must needs be out in it every moment of 
the time. They walked down the beach for miles, hearing 
the muffled sound of the near waves, but not seeing them. 
They sailed in it not knowing whither they went, and they 
drifted out at sunset and watched the land breeze lift it, roll it 
up, and carry it out to sea, where distant ships on the horizon 
line, bound southward, and nearer ones, sailing northward 
with the Gulf Stream, found themselves enveloped and both- 
ered by their old and baffling foe. They went over to the reef 
every morning, these two, and bathed in the fog, coming back 
by sense of feeling, as it were, and landing not infrequently a 
mile below or above the lighthouse; then what appetites 
they had for breakfast ! And, if it was not ready, they roamed 
about, roaring like young lions. At least that is what Mel- 
vyna said one morning when Carrington had put his curly 
head into her kitchen door six times in the course of one half 
hour. 

The Sister shrank from the sea fog ; she had never seen 
one before, and she said it was like a great soft white creature 
that came in on wings, and brooded over the earth. “ Yes, 
beautiful, perhaps,” she said in reply to Keith, “ but it is so 
strange — and — and — I know not how to say it — but it seems 
like a place for spirits to walk, and not of the mortal kind.” 

They were wandering down the beach, where Keith had 
lured her to listen to the sound of the hidden waves. At that 
moment Carrington loomed into view coming toward them. 
He seemed of giant size as he appeared, passed them, and 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


6 S 

disappeared again into the cloud behind, his voice sounding 
muffled as he greeted them. The Sister shrank nearer to her 
companion as the figure had suddenly made itself visible. 
“ Do you know it is a wonder to me how you have ever man- 
aged to live so far,” said Keith smiling. 

“ But it was not far,” said the little nun. “ Nothing was 
ever far at the dear convent, but everything was near, and 
not of strangeness to make one afraid ; the garden wall was 
the end. There we go not outside, but our walk is always 
from the lime-tree to the white rose-bush and back again. 
Everything we know there — not roar of waves, not strong 
wind, not the thick, white air comes to give us fear, but all is 
still and at peace. At night I dream of the organ, and of the 
orange-trees, and of the doves. I wake, and hear only the 
sound of the great water below.” 

“You will go back,” said Keith. 

He had begun to pity her lately, for her longing was deeper 
than he had supposed. It had its roots in her very being. He 
had studied her and found it so. 

“ She will die of pure homesickness if she stays here much 
longer,” he said to Carrington. “ What do you think of our 
writing down to that old convent and offering — -of course un- 
known to her — to pay the little she costs them, if they will 
take her back ? ” 

“ All right,” said Carrington. “ Go ahead.” 

He was making a larger sail for his paroquet boat. “ If 
none of you will go out in her, I might as well have all the 
sport I can,” he said. 

“ Sport to consist in being swamped ? ” Keith asked. 

“ By no means, croaker. Sport to consist in shooting over 
the water like a rocket ; I sitting on the tilted edge, watching 
the waves, the winds, and the clouds, and hearing the water 
sing as we rush along.” 

Keith took counsel with no one else, not even with Melvy- 
na, but presently he wrote his letter and carried it himself 
over to the village to mail. He did good deeds like that once 


66 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


in a while, “ to help humanity,” he said. They were tangible 
always ; like the primary rocks. 

At length one evening the fog rolled out to sea for good 
and all, at least as far as that shore was concerned. In the 
morning there stood the lighthouse, and the island, and the 
reef, just the same as ever. They had almost expected to 
see them altered, melted a little. 

“ Let us go over to the reef, all of us, and spend the day,” 
said Keith. “ It will do us good to breathe the clear air, and 
feel the brilliant, dry, hot sunshine again.” 

“ Hear the man ! ” said Melvyna laughing. “ After trying 
to persuade us all those days that he liked that sticky fog 
too ! ” 

“ Mme. Gonsalvez, we like a lily ; but is that any reason 
why we may not also like a rose ? ” 

“ Neither of ’em grows on this beach as I’m aware of,” 
answered Melvyna dryly. 

Then Carrington put in his voice, and carried the day. 
Women never resisted Carrington long, but yielded almost 
unconsciously to the influence of his height and his strength, 
and his strong, hearty will. A subtiler influence over them, 
however, would have waked resistance, and Carrington him- 
self would have been conquered far sooner (and was con- 
quered later) by one who remained unswayed by those in- 
fluences, to which others paid involuntary obeisance. 

Pedro had gone to the village for his supplies and his two 
days of mild Minorcan dissipation, and Melvyna, beguiled and 
cajoled by the chaffing of the two young men, at last con- 
sented, and not only packed the lunch-basket with careful 
hand, but even donned for the occasion her “ best bonnet,” a 
structure trimmed in Vermont seven years before by the ex- 
perienced hand of Miss Althy Spears, the village milliner, who 
had adorned it with a durable green ribbon and a vigorous 
wreath of artificial flowers. Thus helmeted, Mme. Gonsalvez 
presided at the stern of the boat with great dignity. For 
they were in the safe, well-appointed little yacht belonging to 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


67 


the two gentlemen, the daring paroquet having been left at 
home tied to the last of a low heap of rocks that jutted out 
into the water in front of the lighthouse, the only remains of 
the old stone dock built by the Spaniards long before. Sister 
St. Luke was with them of course, gentle and frightened as 
usual. Her breath came quickly as they neared the reef, and 
Carrington with a sure hand guided the little craft outside 
into (he surf, and, rounding a point, landed them safely in a 
miniature harbor he had noted there. Keith had counted the 
days, and felt sure that the answer from the convent would 
come soon. His offer — for he had made it his alone without 
Carrington’s aid — had been liberal ; there could be but one re- 
ply. The little Sister would soon go back to the lime-tree, the 
white rose-bush, the doves, the old organ that was “ so large ” 
— all the quiet routine of the life she loved so well ; and they 
would see her small oval face and timid dark eyes no more. 
So he took her for a last walk down the reef, while Melvyna 
made coffee, and Carrington, having noticed a dark line float- 
ing on the water, immediately went out in his boat, of course, 
to see what it was. 

The reef had its high backbone, like the island. Some 
day it would be the island, with another reef outside, and the 
lighthouse beach would belong to the mainland. Down the 
stretch of sand toward the. sea the pelicans stood in rows, 
toeing a mark, solemn and heavy, by the hundreds — a count- 
less number — for the reef was their gathering-place. 

“ They are holding a conclave,” said Keith. “ That old 
fellow has the floor. See him wag his head.” 

In and out among the pelicans, and paying no attention 
to them and their conclave, sped the sickle-bill curlews, ac- 
tively probing everywhere with their long, grotesque, sickle- 
shaped bills ; and woe be to the burrowing things that came 
in their way ! The red-beaked oyster-bird flew by, and close 
down to the sea skimmed the razor-bill shear-water, with his 
head bent forward and his feet tilted up, just grazing the 
water with his open bill as he flew, and leaving a shining mark 


68 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


behind, as though he held a pencil in his mouth and was run- 
ning a line. The lazy gulls, who had no work to do, and 
would not have done it if they had, rode at ease on the little 
wavelets close in shore. The Sister, being asked, confessed 
that she liked the lazy gulls best. Being pressed to say why, she 
thought it was because they were more like the white doves 
that sat on the old stone well-curb in the convent garden. 

Keith had always maintained that he liked to talk to wo- 
men. He said that the talk of any woman was more piquant 
than the conversation of the most brilliant men. There was 
only one obstacle : the absolute inability of the sex to be sin- 
cere, or to tell the truth, for ten consecutive minutes. To- 
day, however, as he wandered to and fro whither he would on 
the reef, he also wandered to and fro whither he would in the 
mind, and the absolutely truthful mind too, of a woman. Yet 
he found it dull ! He sighed to himself, but was obliged to 
acknowledge that it was dull. The lime-tree, the organ, the 
Sisters, the Sisters, the lime-tree, the organ ; it grew monoto- 
nous after a while. Yet he held his post, for the sake of the 
old theory, until the high voice of Melvyna called them back 
to the little fire on the beach and the white cloth spread with 
her best dainties. They saw Carrington sailing in with an 
excited air, and presently he brought the boat into the cove 
and dragged ashore his prize, toWed behind — nothing less 
than a large shark, wounded, dead, after a struggle with some 
other marine monster, a sword-fish probably. “ A man- 
eater,” announced the captor. “ Look at him, will you ? 
Look at him, Miss Luke ! ” 4 

But Miss Luke went far away, and would not look. In 
truth he was an ugly creature ; even Melvyna kept at a safe 
distance. But the two men noted all his points ; they mea- 
sured him carefully ; they turned him over, and discussed him 
generally in that closely confined and exhaustive way which 
marks the masculine mind. Set two women to discussing a 
shark, or even the most lovely little brook-trout, if you please, 
and see how far off they will be in five minutes ! 


SISTER ST. LUKE . 


69 


But the lunch was tempting, and finally its discussion 
called them away even from that of the shark. And then 
they all sailed homeward over the green and blue water, while 
the white sand-hills shone silvery before them, and then turned 
red in the sunset. That night the moon was at its full. Keith 
went out and strolled up and down on the beach. Carrington 
was playing fox-and-goose with Mme. Gonsalvez on a board 
he had good-naturedly constructed for her entertainment when 
she confessed one day to a youthful fondness for that exciting 
game. Up stairs gleamed the little Sister’s light. “Saying 
her prayers with her lips, but thinking all the time of that old 
convent,” said the stroller to himself, half scornfully. And 
he said the truth. 

The sea was still and radiant ; hardly more than a ripple 
broke at his feet ; the tide was out, and the broad beach sil- 
very and fresh. “ At home they are buried in snow,” he 
thought, “and the wind is whistling around their double 
windows.” And then he stretched himself on the sand, and 
lay looking upward into the deep blue of the night, bathed in 
the moonlight, and listening dreamily to the soft sound of the 
water as it returned slowly, slowly back from the African 
coast. He thought many thoughts, and deep ones too, and 
at last he was so far away on ideal heights, that, coming home 
after midnight, it was no wonder if, half unconsciously, he 
felt himself above the others ; especially when he passed the 
little Sister’s closed door, and thought, smiling not unkindly, 
how simple she was. 

The next morning the two men went off in their boat again 
for the day, this time alone. There were still a few more 
questions to settle about that shark, and, to tell the truth, they 
both liked a good day of unencumbered sailing better than 
anything else. 

About four o’clock in the afternoon Melvyna, happening 
to look out of the door, saw a cloud no bigger than a man’s 
hand low down on the horizon line of the sea. Something 
made her stand and watch it for a few moments. Then, 


7 o 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


“ Miss Luke ! Miss Luke ! Miss Luke ! Miss Luke ! ” she 
called quickly. Down came the little Sister, startled at the 
cry, her lace-work still in her hand. 

“ Look ! ” said Melvyna. 

The Sister looked, and this is what she saw : a line white 
as milk coming toward them on the water, and behind it a 
blackness. 

“ What is it ? ” she asked. 

“Atornader,” said Melvyna with white lips. “I’ve only 
seen one, and then I was over in the town ; but it’s awful ! 
We must run back to the thicket.” Seizing her companion’s 
arm, the strong Northern woman hurried her across the sand, 
through the belt of sand-hills, and into the thicket, where they 
crouched on its far side close down under the projecting 
backbone. “ The bushes will break the sand, and the ridge 
will keep us from being buried in it,” she said. “ I dursn’t 
stay on the shore, for the water’ll rise.” 

The words were hardly spoken before the tornado was 
upon them, and the air was filled with the flying sand, so that 
they could hardly breathe. Half choked, they beat with their 
hands before them to catch a breath. Then came a roar, and 
for an instant, distant as they were, they caught a glimpse of 
the crest of the great wave that followed the whirlwind. It 
seemed to them mountain-high, and ready to ingulf the entire 
land. With a rushing sound it plunged over the keeper’s 
house, broke against the lower story of the tower, hissed 
across the sand, swallowed the sand-hills, and swept to their 
very feet, then sullenly receded with slow, angry muttering. 
A gale of wind came next, singularly enough from another 
direction, as if to restore the equipoise of the atmosphere. 
But the tornado had gone on inland, where there were trees 
to uproot, and houses to destroy, and much finer entertain- 
ment generally. 

As soon as they could speak, “ Where are the two out in 
the sail-boat ? ” asked the Sister. 

“ God knows ! ” answered Melvyna. “ The last time I 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


7i 

noticed their sail they were about a mile outside of the 
reef.” 

“ I will go and see.” 

“ Go and see ! Are you crazy ? You can never get 
through that water.” 

“ The saints would help me, I think,” said the little Sister. 

She had risen, and now stood regarding the watery waste 
with the usual timid look in her gentle eyes. Then she stepped 
forward with her uncertain tread, and before the woman by 
her side comprehended her purpose she was gone, ankle-deep 
in the tide, knee-deep, and finally wading across the sand up 
to her waist in water toward the lighthouse. The great wave 
was no deeper, however, even there. She waded to the door 
of the tower, opened it with difficulty, climbed the stairway, 
and gained the light-room, where the glass of the windows 
was all shattered, and the little chamber half full of the dead 
bodies of birds, swept along by the whirlwind and dashed 
against the tower, none of them falling to the ground or los- 
ing an inch of their level in the air as they sped onward, until 
they struck against some high object, which broke their mad 
and awful journey. Holding on by the shattered casement, 
Sister St. Luke gazed out to sea. The wind was blowing 
fiercely, and the waves were lashed to fury. The sky was 
inky black. The reef was under water, save one high knob 
of its backbone, and to that two dark objects were clinging. 
Farther down she saw the wreck of the boat driving before 
the gale. Pedro was over in the village ; the tide was coming 
in over the high sea, and night was approaching. She walked 
quickly down the rqugh stone stairs, stepped into the water 
again, and waded across where the paroquet boat had been 
driven against the wall of the house, bailed it out with one 
of Melvyna’s pans, and then, climbing in from the window 
of the sitting-room, she hoisted the sail, and in a moment 
was out on the dark sea. 

Melvyna had ascended to the top of the ridge, and when 
the sail came into view beyond the house she fell down on 


72 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


her knees and began to pray aloud : “ O Lord, save her ; 
save the lamb ! She don’t know what’s she is doing, Lord. 
She’s as simple as a baby. Oh, save her, out on that roaring 
sea! Good Lord, good Lord, deliver her!” Fragments of 
prayers she had heard in her prayer-meeting days came con- 
fusedly back into her mind, and she repeated them all again 
and again, wringing her hands as she saw the little craft tilt 
far over under its all too large sail, so that several times, in’ 
the hollows of the waves, she thought it was gone. The 
wind was blowing hard but steadily, and in a direction that 
carried the boat straight toward the. reef ; no tacks were ne- 
cessary, no change of course; the black-robed little figure 
simply held the sail-rope, and the paroquet drove on. The 
two clinging to the rock, bruised, exhausted, with the waves 
rising and falling arcfund them, did not see the boat until it 
was close upon them. 

“ By the great heavens ! ” said Keith. 

His face was pallid and rigid, and there was a ghastly cut 
across his forehead, the work of the sharp-edged rock. The 
next moment he was on board, brought the boat round just in 
time, and helped in Carrington, whose right arm was injured. 

“ You have saved our lives, senora,” he said abruptly. 

“ By Jove, yes,” said Carrington. “ We could not have 
stood it long, and night was coming.” Then they gave all 
their attention to the hazardous start. 

Sister St. Luke remained unconscious of the fact that she 
had done anything remarkable. Her black gown was spoiled, 
which was a pity, and she knew of a balm which was easily 
compounded and which would heal their bruises. Did they 
think Melvyna had come back to the house yet ? And did 
they know that all her dishes were broken— yes, even the cups 
with the red flowers on the border ? Then she grew timorous 
again, and hid her face from the sight of the waves. 

Keith said not a word, but sailed the boat, and it was a 
wild and dangerous voyage they made, tacking up and down 
in the gayly painted little craft, that seemed like a toy on that 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


73 


angry water. Once Carrington took the little Sister’s hand in 
his, and pressed his lips fervently upon it. She had never had 
her hand kissed before, and looked at him, then at the place, 
with a vague surprise, which soon faded, however, into the 
old fear of the wind. It was night when at last they reached 
the lighthouse ; but during the last two tacks they had a light 
from the window to guide them ; and when nearly in they saw 
'the lantern shining out from the shattered windows of the 
tower in a fitful, surprised sort of way, for Melvyna had re- 
turned, and, with the true spirit of a Yankee, had immediately 
gone to work at the ruins. 

The only sign of emotion she gave was to Keith. “ I saw 
it all,” she said. “ That child went right out after you, in that 
terrible wind, as natural and as quiet as if she was only going 
across the room. And she so timid a fly could frighten her ! 
Mark my words, Mr. Keith, the good Lord helped her to do 
it ! And I’ll go to that new mission chapel over in the town 
every Sunday after this, as sure’s my name is Sawyer ! ” She 
ceased abruptly, and, going into her kitchen, slammed the 
door behind her. Emotion with Melvyna took the form of 
roughness. 

Sister St. Luke went joyfully back to her convent the next 
day, for Pedro, when he returned, brought the letter, written, 
as Keith had directed, in the style of an affectionate invitation. 
The little nun wept for happiness when she read it. “ You 
see how they love me — love me as I love them,” she repeated 
with innocent triumph again and again. 

“ It is all we can do,” said Keith. “ She could not be 
happy anywhere else, and with the money behind her she will 
not be neglected. Besides, I really believe they do love her. 
The sending her up here was probably the result of some out- 
side dictation.” 

Carrington, however, was dissatisfied. “ A pretty return 
we make for our saved lives ! ” he said. “ I hate ingratitude.” 
For Carrington was half disposed now to fall in love with his 
preserver. 


74 


SISTER ST. LUKE. 


But Keith stood firm. 

“ Addios,” said the little Sister, as Pedro’s boat received 
her. Her face had lighted so with joy and glad anticipation 
that they hardly knew her. “ I wish you could to the convent 
go with me,” she said earnestly to the two young men. “ I 
am sure you would like it.” Then, as the boat turned the 
point, “ I am sure you would like it,” she called back, crossing 
her hands on her breast. “ It is very heavenly there — very 
heavenly.” 

That was the last they saw of her. 

Carrington sent down the next winter from New York a 
large silver crucifix, superbly embossed and ornamented. It 
was placed on the high altar of the convent, and much ad- 
mired and reverenced by all the nuns. Sister St. Luke ad- 
mired it too. She spoke of the island occasionally, but she 
did not tell the story of the rescue. She never thought of it. 
Therefore, in the matter of the crucifix, the belief was that 
a special grace had touched the young man’s heart. And 
prayers were ordered for him. Sister St. Luke tended her 
doves, and at the hour of meditation paced to and fro between 
the lime-tree and the bush of white roses. When she was 
thirty years old her cup was full, for then she was permitted 
to take lessons and play a little upon the old organ. 

Melvyna went every Sunday to the bare, struggling little 
Presbyterian mission over in the town, and she remains to this 
day a Sawyer. 

But Keith remembered. He bares his head silently in 
reverence to all womanhood, and curbs his cynicism as best 
he can, for the sake of the little Sister — the sweet little Sister 
St. Luke. 


MISS ELISABETH A. 


In yonder homestead, wreathed with bounteous vines, 

A lonely woman dwells, whose wandering feet 
Pause oft amid one chamber’s calm retreat, 

Where an old mirror from its quaint frame shines. 

And here, soft wrought in memory’s vague designs, 

Dim semblances her wistful gaze will greet 
Of lost ones that inthrall phantasmally sweet 
The mirror’s luminous quietude enshrines. 

But unto her these dubious forms that pass 
With shadowy majesty or dreamy grace, 

Wear nothing of ghostliness in mien or guise. 

The only ghost that haunts this glimmering glass 

Carries the sad reality in its face 

Of her own haggard cheeks and desolate eyes ! 

Edgar Fawcett. 


Overlooking the tide-water river stands an old house, 
gleaming white in the soft moonlight ; the fragrance of tropic 
flowers floats out to sea on the land-breeze, coming at sunset 
over the pine-barrens to take the place of the ocean winds that 
have blown all day long, bringing in the salt freshness to do 
battle with the hot shafts of the sun and conquer them. The 
side of the house toward the river shows stone arches, door- 
less, opening into a hall ; beyond is a large room, lighted by 
two candles placed on an old-fashioned piano; and full in 
their yellow radiance sits Miss Elisabetha, playing, with clear, 
measured touch, an old-time minuet. The light falls upon 
her face, with its sharp, high-curved features, pale-blue eyes, 
and the three thin curls of blonde hair on each side. She is 
not young, our Elisabetha : the tall, spare form, stiffly erect, 
the little wisp of hair behind ceremoniously braided and 


MISS ELISABETHA. 


76 

adorned with a high comb, the long, thin hands, with the tell- 
tale wrist-bones prominent as she plays, and the fine network 
of wrinkles over her pellucid, colorless cheeks, tell this. But 
the boy who listens sees it not ; to him she is a St. Cecilia, 
and the gates of heaven open as she plays. He leans his 
head against the piano, and his thoughts are lost in melody ; 
they do not take the form of words, but sway to and fro with 
the swell and the ebb of the music. If you should ask him, 
he could not express what he feels, for his is no analytical 
mind ; attempt to explain it to him, and very likely he would 
fall asleep before your eyes. Miss Elisabetha plays well — in 
a prim, old-fashioned way, but yet well ; the ancient piano 
has lost its strength, but its tones are still sweet, and the mis- 
tress humors its failings. She tunes it herself, protects its 
strings from the sea-damps, dusts it carefully, and has em- 
broidered for it a cover in cross-stitch, yellow tulips growing 
in straight rows out of a blue ground — an heirloom pattern 
brought from Holland. Yet entire happiness can not be ours 
in this world, and Miss Elisabetha sometimes catches herself 
thinking how delightful it would be to use E flat once more ; 
but the piano’s E flat is hopelessly gone. 

“ Is not that enough for this evening, Theodore ? ” said 
Miss Elisabetha, closing the manuscript music-book, whose 
delicate little pen-and-ink notes were fading away with age. 

“ Oh, no, dear aunt ; sing for me, please, 4 The Proud 
Ladye.’ ” 

And so the piano sounded forth again in a prim melody, 
and the thin voice began the ballad of the knight, who, scorned 
by his lady-love, went to the wars with her veil bound on his 
heart ; he dies on the field, but a dove bears back the veil to 
the Proud Ladye, who straightway falls “ a-weeping and a- 
weeping till she weeps her life away.” The boy who listens 
is a slender stripling, with brown eyes, and a mass of brown 
curls tossed back from a broad, low forehead ; he has the out- 
lines of a Greek, and a dark, silken fringe just borders his 
boyish mouth. He is dressed in a simple suit of dark-blue 


MISS ELISABETHA. 


77 


cotton jacket and trousers, the broad white collar turned down, 
revealing his round young throat ; on his slender feet he wears 
snowy stockings, knitted by Miss Elisabetha’s own hands, and 
over them a low slipper of untanned leather. His brown 
hands are clasped over one knee, the taper fingers and almond- 
shaped nails betraying the artistic temperament— a sign which 
is confirmed by the unusually long, slender line of the ^eye- 
brows, curving down almost to the cheeks. 

“ A-weeping and a-weeping till she weeps her life away,” 
sang Miss Elisabetha, her voice in soft diminuendo to express 
the mournful end of the Proud Ladye. Then, closing the 
piano carefully, and adjusting the tulip-bordered cover, she 
extinguished the candles, and the two went out under the 
open arches, where chairs stood ready for them nightly. The 
tide-water river — the Warra — flowed by, the moon-path shin- 
ing goldenly across it ; up in the north palmettos stood in 
little groups alongshore, with the single feathery pine-trees of 
the barrens coming down to meet them ; in the south shone 
the long lagoon, with its low islands, while opposite lay the 
slender point of the mainland, fifteen miles in length, the 
Warra on one side, and on the other the ocean ; its white 
sand-ridges gleamed in the moonlight, and the two could hear 
the sound of the waves on its outer beach. 

“ It is so beautiful,” said the boy, his dreamy eyes follow- 
ing the silver line of the lagoon. 

“ Yes,” replied Miss Elisabetha, “but we have no time to 
waste, Theodore. Bring your guitar and let me hear you 
sing that romanza again ; remember the pauses — three beats 
to the measure.” 

Then sweetly sounded forth the soft tenor voice, singing 
an old French romanza , full of little quavers, and falls, and 
turns, which the boy involuntarily slurred into something like 
naturalness, or gave staccato as the mocking-bird throws out 
his shower of short, round notes. But Miss Elisabetha al- 
lowed no such license : had she not learned that very romanza 
from Monsieur Vocard himself forty years before ? and had 


MISS ELI SAB E THA. 


78 

he not carefully taught her every one of those little turns and 
quavers ? Taking the guitar from Theodore’s hand, she exe- 
cuted all the flourishes slowly and precisely, making him fol- 
low her, note for note. Then he must sing it all over again 
while she beat the time with her long, slender foot, incased 
in a black-silk slipper of her own making. The ladies of the 
Daarg family always wore slippers — the heavy-sounding mod- 
ern boot they considered a structure suitable only for persons 
of plebeian origin. A lady should not even step perceptibly ; 
she should glide. 

“ Miss ’Lisabeet, de toas’ is ready. Bress de chile, how 
sweet he sings to-night ! Mos’ like de mock-bird’s self, Mass’ 
Doro.” 

So spoke old Viny, the one servant of the house, a broad- 
shouldered, jet-black, comfortable creature, with her gray 
wool peeping from beneath a gay turban. She had belonged 
to Doro’s Spanish mother, but, when Miss Elisabetha came 
South to take the house and care for the orphan-boy, she had 
purchased the old woman, and set her free immediately. 

“ It don’t make naw difference as I can see, Miss ’Lisa- 
beet,” said Viny, when the new mistress carefully explained 
to her that she was a free agent from that time forth. “ ’Pears 
harnsome in you to do it, but it am’t likely I’ll leabe my chile, 
my Doro-boy, long as I lib — is it, now ? When I die, he’ll 
have ole Viny burred nice, wid de priests, an’ de candles, an’ 
de singing, an’ all.” 

“ Replace your guitar, Theodore,” said Miss Elisabetha, 
rising, “ and then walk to and fro between here and the gate 
ten times. Walk briskly, and keep your mouth shut ; after 
singing you should always guard against the damps.” 

The boy obeyed in his dreamy way, pacing down the white 
path, made hard with pounded oyster-shells, to the high stone 
wall. The old iron-clamped gate, which once hung between 
the two pomegranate-topped pillars, was gone ; for years it 
had leaned tottering half across the entrance-way, threaten- 
ing to brain every comer, but Miss Elisabetha had ordered its 


MISS ELISABETHA. 


79 


removal in the twinkling of her Northern eye, and in its place 
now hung a neat, incongruous little wicket, whose latch was 
a standing bone of contention between the mistress and the 
entire colored population of the small village. 

“ Go back and latch the gate,” was her constantly repeated 
order ; “ the cows might enter and injure the garden.” 

“ But th’ am’t no cows, Miss ’Lisabeet.” 

“ There should be, then,” the ancient maiden would reply, 
severely. “ Grass would grow with a little care and labor ; 
look at our pasture. You are much too indolent, good peo- 
ple ! ” 

Theodore stood leaning over the little gate, his eyes fixed 
on the white sand-hills across the Warra ; he was listening to 
the waves on the outer beach. 

“Theodore, Theodore!” called Miss Elisabetha’s voice, 
“ do not stand, but pace to and fro ; and be sure and keep 
your mouth closed.” 

Mechanically the boy obeyed, but his thoughts were fol- 
lowing the sound of the water. Following a sound? Yes. 
Sounds were to him a language, and he held converse with 
the surf, the winds, the rustling marsh-grass, and the sighing 
pines of the barrens. The tale of the steps completed, he re- 
entered the house, and, following the light, went into a long, 
narrow room, one of three which, built out behind the main 
body of the house, formed with its back- wall a square, sur- 
rounding a little courtyard, in whose center stood the well, a 
ruined fountain, rose- and myrtle-bushes, and two ancient fig- 
trees, dwarfed and gnarled. Miss Elisabetha was standing at 
the head of the table ; before her was a plate containing three 
small slices of dry toast, crisp and brown, and a decanter of 
orange-wine, made by her own hands. One slice of the toast 
was for herself, two were for the boy, who was still supposed 
to be growing ; a Northerner would have said that he was 
over twenty, but Spanish blood hastens life, and Teodoro in 
years was actually not yet eighteen. In mind he was still 
younger, thanks to Miss Elisabetha’s care and strict control. 


8o 


MISS ELISABETHA. 


It had never even occurred to him that he need not so abso- 
lutely obey her ; and, to tell the truth, neither had it occurred 
to her. Doro ate his simple supper standing — the Daarg 
family never sat down gluttonously to supper, but browsed 
lightly on some delicate fragments, moving about and chatting 
meanwhile as though half forgetting they were eating at all. 
Then Miss Elisabetha refilled his little glass, watched him 
drink the clear amber liquid to the last drop, and bade him 
good night in her even voice. He turned at the door and 
made her a formal bow, not without grace ; she had carefully 
taught him this salutation, and required it of him every night. 

“ I wish you a blessed rest, Theodore,” she said, courtesy- 
ing in reply ; “ do not keep the light burning.” 

Half an hour later, when the ancient maiden glided out of 
her chamber, clad in a long frilled wrapper, the three curls in 
papers on each side of her head, she saw no gleam from 
under the low door of the little room across the hall ; she lis- 
tened, but there was no sound, and, satisfied, she retired to 
her high couch and closed the gayly flowered curtains around 
her. But, out on the small balcony which hung like a cage 
from his eastern window, Doro stood, leaning over the iron 
railing and listening, listening to the far sound of the sea. 

Such had been the life down in the old house for sixteen 
long, winterless years, the only changes being more difficult 
music and more toast, longer lessons in French, longer legs 
to the little blue trousers, increased attention to sea-baths and 
deportment, and always and ever a careful saving of every 
copper penny and battered shilling. What became of these 
coins old Viny did not know ; she only knew how patiently 
they were collected, and how scrupulously saved. Miss Elisa- 
betha attended to the orange-grove in person ; not one orange 
was lost, and the annual waste of the other proprietors, an 
ancient and matter-of-course waste, handed down from father 
to son, represented in her purse not a few silver pieces. Pe- 
dro, the Minorcan, who brought her fish and sea-food, she 
had drilled from boyhood in his own art by sheer force of 


MISS ELI SAB E THA . 


8 


will, paying him by the day, and sending him into the town to 
sell from door to door all she did not need herself, to the very 
last clam. The lazy housewives soon grew into the habit of 
expecting Pedro and his basket, and stood in their doorways 
chatting in the sun and waiting for him, while the husbands 
let their black dugouts lie idle, and lounged on the sea-wall, 
smoking and discussing the last alligator they had shot, or the 
last ship, a coasting-schooner out of water, which had sailed 
up their crooked harbor six months before. Miss Elisabetha 
had learned also to braid palmetto, and her long fingers, once 
accustomed to the work, accomplished as much in a week as 
Zanita Perez and both her apprentices accomplished in two ; 
she brought to the task also original ideas, original at least in 
Beata, where the rude hats and baskets were fac-similes of 
those braided there two hundred years before by the Spanish 
women, who had learned the art from the Indians. Thus 
Miss Elisabetha’s wares found ready sale at increased prices, 
little enough to Northern ideas — sixpence for a hat — one shil- 
ling for a basket ; but all down the coast, and inland toward 
the great river, there was a demand for her work, and the 
lines hung in the garden were almost constantly covered with 
the drying palmetto. Then she taught music. To whom, do 
you ask ? To the black-eyed daughters of the richer towns- 
people, and to one or two demoiselles belonging to Spanish 
families down the coast, sent up to Beata to be educated by 
the nuns. The good Sisters did their best, but they knew 
little, poor things, and were glad to call in Miss Elisabetha 
with her trills and quavers ; so the wiry organ in the little ca- 
thedral sounded out the ballads and romanzas of Monsieur 
Vocard, and the demoiselles learned to sing them in their 
broken French, no doubt greatly to the satisfaction of the 
golden-skinned old fathers and mothers on the plantations 
down the coast. The padre in charge of the parish had often 
importuned Miss Elisabetha to play this organ on Sundays, as 
the decorous celebration of high-mass suffered sadly, not to 
say ludicrously, from the blunders of poor Sister Paula. But 


82 


MISS ELI SAB E THA. 


Miss Elisabetha briefly refused ; she must draw a line some- 
where, and a pagan ceremonial she could not countenance. 
The Daarg family, while abhorring greatly the Puritanism of 
the New England colonies, had yet held themselves equally 
aloof from the image-worship of Rome; and they had al- 
ways considered it one of the inscrutable mysteries of Provi- 
dence that the French nation, so skilled in polite attitude, so 
versed in the singing of romanzas, should yet have been al- 
lowed to remain so long in ignorance of the correct religious 
mean. 

The old house was managed with the nicest care. Its 
thick coquina-walls remained solid still, and the weak spots 
in the roof were mended with a thatch of palmetto and tar, 
applied monthly under the mistress’s superintendence by 
Viny, who never ceased to regard the performance as a won- 
der of art, accustomed as she was to the Beata fashion of 
letting roofs leak when they wanted to, the family never in- 
terfering, but encamping on the far side of the flow with calm 
undisturbed. The few pieces of furniture were dusted and 
rubbed daily, and the kitchen department was under martial 
law ; the three had enough to eat — indeed, an abundance — 
oysters, fish, and clams, sweet potatoes from the garden, and 
various Northern vegetables forced to grow under the vigilant 
nursing they received, but hating it, and coming up as spin- 
dling as they could. The one precious cow gave them milk 
and butter, the well-conducted hens gave them eggs ; flour 
and meal, coffee and tea, hauled across the barrens from the 
great river, were paid for in palmetto-work. Yes, Miss Elisa- 
betha’s household, in fact, lived well, better perhaps than any 
in Beata ; but so measured were her quantities, so exact her 
reckonings, so long her look ahead, that sometimes, when she 
was away, old Viny felt a sudden wild desire to toss up frit- 
ters in the middle of the afternoon, to throw away yesterday’s 
tea-leaves, to hurl the soured milk into the road, or even to 
eat oranges without counting them, according to the faslflfens 
of the easy old days when Doro’s Spanish grandmother held 


MISS ELI SAB E THA. 


83 


the reins, and everything went to ruin comfortably. Every 
morning after breakfast Miss Elisabetha went the rounds 
through the house and garden ; then English and French 
with Doro. for two hours ; next a sea-bath for him, and sail- 
ing or walking as he pleased, when the sun was not too hot. 
Luncheon at noon, followed by a siesta ; then came a music- 
lesson, long and charming to both ; and, after that, he had 
his choice from among her few books. Dinner at five, a stroll 
along the beach, music in the evenings — at first the piano in 
the parlor, then the guitar under the arches ; last of all, the 
light supper, and good-night. Such was Doro’s day. But 
Miss Elisabetha, meanwhile, had a hundred other duties which 
she never neglected, in spite of her attention to his welfare — 
first the boy, then his money, for it was earned and destined 
for him. Thus the years had passed, without change, without 
event, without misfortune ; the orange-trees had not failed, 
the palmetto-work had not waned, and the little store of money 
grew apace. Doro, fully employed, indulged by Viny, amused 
with his dogs, his parrot, his mocking-birds, and young owls, 
all the variety of pets the tropical land afforded, even to young 
alligators clandestinely kept in a sunken barrel up the marsh, 
knew no ennui. But, most of all, the music filled his life, 
rounding out every empty moment, and making an undercur- 
rent, as it were, to all other occupations ; so that the French 
waltzed through his brain, the English went to marches, the 
sailing made for itself gondelieds , and even his plunges in the 
Warra were like crashes of fairy octaves, with arpeggios of 
pearly notes in showers coming after. 

These were the ante-bellum days, before the war had 
opened the Southern country to winter visitors from the 
North ; invalids a few, tourists a few, came and went, but the 
great tide, which now sweeps annually down the Atlantic 
coast to Florida, was then unknown. Beata, lying by itself 
far down the peninsula, no more looked for winter visitors 
than 'it looked for angels ; but one day an angel arrived una- 
wares, and Doro saw her. 


8 4 


MISS ELIS ABE THA. 


Too simple-hearted to conceal, excited, longing for sym- 
pathy, he poured out his story to Miss Elisabetha, who sat 
copying from her music-book a certain ballad for the Demoi- 
selle Xantez. 

“It was over on the north beach, aunt, and I heard the 
music and hastened thither. She was sitting on a tiger-skin 
thrown down on the white sand ; purple velvet flowed around 
her, and above, from embroideries like cream, rose her flower- 
face set on a throat so white, where gleamed a star of 
brilliancy ; her hair was like gold — yellow gold — and it hung 
in curls over her shoulders, a mass of radiance ; her eyes were 
blue as the deepest sky-color ; and oh ! so white her skin, I 
could scarcely believe her mortal. She was playing on a gui- 
tar, with her little hands so white, so soft, and singing — aunt, 
it was like what I have dreamed.” 

The boy stopped and covered his face with his hands. 
Miss Elisabetha had paused, pen in hand. What was this 
new talk of tiger-skins and golden hair ? No one could sing 
in Beata save herself alone ; the boy was dreaming ! 

“ Theodore,” she said, “ fancy is permitted to us under 
certain restrictions, but no well-regulated mind will make to 
itself realities of fancies. I am sorry to be obliged to say it, 
but the romances must be immediately removed from the 
shelf.” 

These romances, three in number, selected and sanctioned 
by the governess of the Misses Daarg forty years before, still 
stood in Miss Elisabetha s mind as exemplars of the wildest 
flights of fancy. 

“But this is not fancy, dear aunt,” said Doro eagerly, 
his brown eyes velvet with moisture, and his brown cheeks 
flushed. “ I saw it all this afternoon over on the beach ; I 
could show you the very spot where the tiger-skin lay, and 
the print of her foot, which had a little shoe so odd— like 
this,” and rapidly he drew the outline of a walking-boot in the 
extreme of the Paris fashion. 

Miss Elisabetha put on her glasses. 


MISS ELISABETHA. 


85 


“ Heels,” she said slowly ; “ I have heard of them.” 

“ There is nothing in all the world like her,” pursued the 
excited boy, " for her hair is of pure gold, not like the people 
here ; and her eyes are so sweet, and her forehead so white ! 
I never knew such people lived — why have you not told me 
all these years ? ” 

“ She is a blonde,” replied Miss Elisabetha primly. “ I, 
too, am a blonde, Theodore.” 

“ But not like this, aunt. My lovely lady is like a rose.” 

“ A subdued monotone of coloring has ever been a char- 
acteristic of our family, Theodore. But I do not quite under- 
stand your story. Who is this person, and was she alone on 
the beach ? ” 

“ There were others, but I did not notice them ; I only 
looked at her.” 

“ And she sang ? ” 

“ O aunt, so heavenly sweet — so strange, so new her song, 
that I was carried away up into the blue sky as if on strong 
wings — I seemed to float in melody. But I can not talk of 
it ; it .takes my breath away, even in thought ! ” 

Miss Elisabetha sat perplexed. 

“ Was it one of our romanzas, Theodore, or a ballad ? ” 
she said, running over the list in her mind. 

“ It was something I never heard before,” replied Doro, 
in a low voice ; “ it was not like anything else — not even the 
mocking-bird, for, though it went on and on, the same strain 
floated back into it again and again ; and the mocking-bird, 
you know, has a light and fickle soul. Aunt, I can not tell 
you what it was like, but it seemed to tell me a new story of 
a new world.” 

“ How many beats had it to the measure ? ” asked Miss 
Elisabetha, after a pause. 

“ I do not know,” replied the boy dreamily. 

“ You do not know ! All music is written in some set 
time, Theodore. At least, you can tell me about the words. 
Were they French ? ” 


86 


MISS ELISABETHA. 


“ No.” 

“ Nor English ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ What then ? ” 

“ I know not ; angel-words, perhaps. 

“ Did she speak to you ? ” 

“ Yes,” replied Doro, clasping -his hands fervently. “ She 
asked me if I liked the song, and I said, ‘ Lady, it is of the 
angels.’ Then she smiled, and asked my name, and I told 
her, ‘ Doro ” 

“ You should have said, ‘ Theodore,’ ” interrupted Miss 
Elisabetha ; “ do I not always call you so ? ” 

“ And she said it was a lovely name ; and could I sing ? 
I took her guitar, and sang to her — ” 

“ And she praised your method, I doubt not ? ” 

“ She said, ‘ Oh, what a lovely voice ! ’ and she touched 
my hair with her little hands, and I — I thought I should die, 
aunt, but I only fell at her feet.” 

“ And where — where is this person now ? ” said the per- 
plexed maiden, catching at something definite. 

“ She has gone — gone ! I stood and watched the little flag 
on the mast until I could see it no more. She has gone ! Pity 
me, aunt, dear aunt. What shall I do ? How shall I live ? ” 

The boy broke into sobs, and would say no more. Miss 
Elisabetha was strangely stirred ; here was a case beyond her 
rules ; what should she do ? Having no precedent to guide 
her, she fell back into her old beliefs gained from studies of 
the Daarg family, as developed in boys. Doro was excused 
from lessons, and the hours were made pleasant to him. She 
spent many a morning reading aloud to him ; and old Viny 
stood amazed at the variety and extravagance of the dishes 
ordered for him. 

“ What ! chickens ebery day, Miss ’Lisabeet ? ’Pears like 
Mass’ Doro hab eberyting now ! ” 

“ Theodore is ill, Lavinia,” replied the mistress ; and she 
really thought so. 


MISS ELISABETHA. 


87 

Music, however, there was none ; the old charmed after- 
noons and evenings were silent. 

“ I can not bear it,” the boy had said, with trembling lips. 

But one evening he did not return : the dinner waited for 
him in vain ; the orange after-glow faded away over the pine- 
barrens ; and in the pale green of the evening sky arose the 
star of the twilight ; still he came not. 

Miss Elisabetha could eat nothing. 

“ Keep up the fire, Lavinia,” she said, rising from the table 
at last. 

“ Keep up de fire, Miss ’Lisabeet ! Till when ? ” 

“ Till Theodore comes ! ” replied the mistress shortly. 

“ De worl’ mus’ be coming to de end,” soliloquized the old 
black woman, carrying out the dishes ; “ sticks of wood no 
account ! ” 

Late in the evening a light footstep sounded over the 
white path, and the strained, watching eyes under the stone 
arches saw at last the face of the missing one. 

“ O aunt, I have seen her — I have seen her ! I thought 
her gone for ever. O aunt — dear, dear aunt, she has sung for 
me again ! ” said the boy, flinging himself down on the stones, 
and laying his flushed face on her knee. “ This time it was 
over by the old lighthouse, aunt. I was sailing up and down 
in the very worst breakers I could find, half hoping they 
would swamp the boat, for I thought perhaps I could forget 
her down there under the water — when I saw figures moving 
over on the island-beach. Something in the outlines of one 
made me tremble ; and I sailed over like the wind, the little 
boat tilted on its side within a hair’s-breadth of the water, 
cutting it like a knife as it flew. It was she, aunt, and she 
smiled ! ‘ What, my young Southern nightingale,’ she said, 
‘ is it you ?, ’ And she gave me her hand — her soft little 
hand.” 

The thin fingers, hardened by much braiding of palmetto, 
withdrew themselves instinctively from the boy’s dark curls. 
He did not notice it, but rushed on with his story unheeding . 


88 


MISS ELISABETHA. 


“ She let me walk with her, aunt, and hold her parasol, 
decked with lace, and she took off her hat and hung it* on my 
arm, and it had a long, curling plume. She gave me sweet 
things- — oh, so delicious ! See, I kept some,” said Doro, 
bringing out a little package of bonbons. “ Some are of 
sugar, you see, and some have nuts in them ; those are choco- 
late. Are they not beautiful ? ” 

“ Candies, I think,” said Miss Elisabetha, touching them 
doubtfully with the end of her quill. 

“ And she sang, for me, aunt, the same angel’s music ; and 
then, when I was afar in heaven, she brought me back with a 
song about three fishermen who sailed out into the west ; and 
I wept to hear her, for her voice then was like the sea when 
it feels cruel. She saw the tears, and, bidding me sit by her 
side, she struck a few chords on her guitar and sang to me 
of a miller’s daughter who grew so dear, so dear. Do you 
know it, aunt ? ” 

“ A miller’s daughter ? No ; I have no acquaintance with 
any such person,” said Miss Elisabetha, considering. 

“ Wait, I will sing it to you,” said Doro, running to bring 
his guitar ; “ she taught it to me herself ! ” 

And then the tenor voice rose in the night air, bearing on 
the lovely melody the impassioned words of the poet. Doro 
sang them with all his soul, and the ancient maiden felt her 
heart disquieted within her — why, she knew not. It seemed 
as though her boy was drifting away whither she could not 
follow. 

Is it not beautiful, aunt ? I sang it after her line by line 
until I knew it all, and then I sang her all my songs ; and she 
said I must come and see her the day after to-morrow, and 
she would give me her picture and something else. What do 
you suppose it is, aunt? She would not tell me, but she 
smiled and gave me her hand for good-by. And now I can 
live, for I am to see her at Martera’s house, beyond the con- 
vent, the day after to-morrow, the day after to-morrow — oh, 
happy day, the day after to-morrow ! ” 


MISS ELISABETHA. 


89 

“ Come and eat your dinner, Theodore,” said Miss Elisa- 
betha, rising. Face to face with a new world, whose possi- 
bilities she but dimly understood, and whose language was to 
her an unknown tongue, she grasped blindly at the old an- 
chors riveted in years of habit ; the boy had always been 
something of an epicure in his fastidious way, and one of his 
favorite dishes was on the table. 

“ You may go, Lavinia,” she said, as the old slave lingered 
to see if her darling enjoyed the dainties ; she could not bear 
that even Viny’s faithful eyes should notice the change, if 
change there was. 

The boy ate nothing. 

“ I am not hungry, aunt,” he said, “ I had so many 
delicious things over on the beach. I do not know what 
they were, but they were not like our things at all.” And, 
with a slight gesture of repugnance, he pushed aside his 
plate. 

“You had better go to bed,” said Miss Elisabetha, rising. 
In her perplexity this was the first thing which suggested it- 
self to her ; a good night’s rest had been known to work 
wonders ; she would say no more till morning. The boy 
went readily ; but he must have taken his guitar with him, 
for long after Miss Elisabetha had retired to her couch she 
heard him softly singing again and again the romance of the 
miller’s daughter. Several times she half rose as if to go and 
stop him ; then a confused thought came to her that perhaps 
his unrest might work itself off in that way, and she sank 
back, listening meanwhile to the fanciful melody with feelings 
akin to horror. It seemed to have no regular time, and the 
harmony was new and strange to her old-fashioned ears. 
“ Truly, it must be the work of a composer gone mad,” said 
the poor old maid, after trying in vain for the fifth time to 
follow the wild air. There was not one trill or turn in all its 
length, and the accompaniment, instead of being the decorous 
one octave in the bass, followed by two or three chords ac- 
cording to the time, seemed to be but a general sweeping 


9 o 


MISS ELI SAB E THA. 


over the strings, with long pauses, and unexpected minor 
harmony introduced, turning the air suddenly upside down, 
and then back again before one had time to comprehend what 
was going on. “ Heaven help me ! ” said Miss Elisabetha, as 
the melody began again for the sixth time, “ but I fear I am 
sinful enough to hate that miller’s daughter.” And it was 
very remarkable, to say the least, that a person in her position 
“ was possessed of a. jewel to tremble in her ear,” she added 
censoriously, “ not even to speak of a necklace.” But the 
comfort was cold, and, before she knew it, slow, troubled tears 
had dampened her pillow. 

Early the next morning she was astir by candle-light, and, 
going into the detached kitchen, began preparing breakfast 
with her own hands, adding to the delicacies already ordered 
certain honey-cakes, an heirloom in the Daarg family. Viny 
could scarcely believe her eyes when, on coming down to her 
domain at the usual hour, she found the great fireplace glow- 
ing, and the air filled with the fragrance of spices ; Christmas 
alone had heretofore seen these honey-cakes, and to-day was 
only a common day ! 

“ I do not care for anything, aunt,” said Doro, coming 
listlessly to the table when all was ready. He drank some 
coffee, broke a piece of bread, and then went back to his gui- 
tar ; the honey-cakes he did not even notice. 

One more effort remained. Going softly into the parlor 
during the morning. Miss Elisabetha opened the piano, and, 
playing over the prelude to “ The Proud Ladye,” began to 
sing in her very best style, giving the flourishes with elaborate 
art, scarcely a note without a little step down from the one 
next higher; these airy descents, like flights of fairy stairs, 
were considered very high art in the days of Monsieur Vo- 
card. She was in the middle of “ a-weeping and a-weeping,” 
when Doro rushed into the room. “ O aunt,” he cried, 
“ please, please do not sing ! Indeed, I can not bear it. We 
have been all wrong about our music ; I can not explain it, 
but I feel it — I know it. If you could only hear her ! Come 


MISS ELISABETHA. 


91 

with me to-morrow and hear her, dear aunt, and then you 
will understand what I mean.” 

Left to herself again, Miss Elisabetha felt a great resolve 
come to her. She herself would go and see this stranger, and 
grind her to powder ! She murmured these words over sev- 
eral times, and derived much comfort from them. 

With firm hands she unlocked the cedar chest which had 
come with her from the city seventeen years before ; but the 
ladies of the Daarg family had not been wont to change their 
attire every passing fashion, and the robe she now drew forth 
was made in the style of full twenty-five years previous — a 
stiff drab brocade flowered in white, two narrow flounces 
around the bottom of the scant skirt, cut half low in the neck 
with a little bertha, the material wanting in the lower part 
standing out resplendent in the broad leg-of-mutton sleeves, 
stiffened with buckram. Never had the full daylight of Beata 
seen this precious robe, and Miss Elisabetha herself con- 
sidered it for a moment with some misgivings as to its being 
too fine for such an occasion. But had not Doro spoken of 
“ velvet ” and “ embroideries ” ? So, with solemnity, she ar- 
rayed herself, adding a certain Canton-crape scarf of a delicate 
salmon color, and a Leghorn bonnet with crown and cape, 
which loomed out beyond her face so that the three curls 
slanted forward over the full ruche to get outside, somewhat 
like blinders. Thus clad, with her slippers, her bag on her 
arm, and lace mits on her hands, Miss Elisabetha surveyed 
herself in the glass. In the bag were her handkerchief, an 
ancient smelling-bottle, and a card, yellow indeed, but still a 
veritable engraved card, with these words upon it : 

“Miss ELISABETHA DAARG, 
daarg’s bay.” 


The survey was satisfactory. “ Certainly I look the gen- 
tlewoman,” she thought, with calm pride, “ and this person, 
whoever she is, can not fail to at once recognize me as such. 


92 


MISS ELISABETHA. 


It has never been our custom to visit indiscriminately ; but in 
this case I do it for the boy’s sake.” So she sallied forth, go- 
ing- out by a side-door to escape observation, and walked to- 
ward the town, revolving in her mind the words she should 
use when face to face with the person. “ I shall request her 
— with courtesy, of course — still I shall feel obliged to request 
her to leave the neighborhood,” she thought. “ I shall ex- 
press to her — with kindness, but also with dignity — my opin- 
ion of the meretricious music she has taught my boy, and I 
shall say to her frankly that I really can not permit her to see 
him again. Coming from me, these words will, of course, 
have weight, and — ” 

“Oh, see Miss ’Lisabeet!” sang out a child’s voice. 
“ Nita, do but come and see how fine she is ! ” 

Nita came, saw, and followed, as did other children — girls 
carrying plump babies, olive-skinned boys keeping close to- 
gether, little blacks of all ages, with go-carts made of turtle- 
shells. It was not so much the splendor — though that was 
great, too — as it was the fact that Miss Elisabetha wore it. 
Had they not all known her two cotton gowns as far back as 
they could remember ? Reaching the Martera house at last, 
her accustomed glide somewhat quickened by the presence of 
her escort (for, although she had often scolded them over her 
own gate, it was different now when they assumed the pro- 
portions of a body-guard), she gave her card to little Inez, a 
daughter of the household, and one of her pupils. 

“ Bear this card to the person you have staying with you, 
my child, and ask her if she will receive me.” 

“ But there is more than one person, sefiora,” replied Inez, 
lost in wonder over the brocade. 

“ The one who sings, then.” 

“ They all sing, Miss ’Lisabeet.” 

“Well, then, I mean the person who — who wears purple 
velvet and — and embroideries,” said the visitor, bringing out 
these items reluctantly. 

“Ah ! you mean the beautiful lady,” cried Inez. “I run, 


MISS ELISABETHA. 


93 


I run, senora ” ; and in a few minutes Miss Elisabetha was 
ushered up the stairs, and found herself face to face with 
“ the person.” 

“To whom have I the honor of speaking? ” said a languid 
voice from the sofa. 

“ Madame, my card — ” 

“Oh, was that a card? Pray excuse me. — Lucille, my 
glasses.” Then, as a French maid brought the little, gold- 
rimmed toy, the person scanned the name. “ Ma’m’selle 
Dag ? ” she said inquiringly. 

“ Daarg, madame,” replied Miss Elisabetha. “ If you 
have resided in New York at all, you are probably familiar 
with the name ” ; and majestically she smoothed down the 
folds of the salmon-colored scarf. 

“ I have resided in New York, and I am not familiar with 
the name,” said the person, throwing her head back indolently 
among the cushions. 

She wore a long, full robe of sea-green silk, opening over 
a mist of lace-trimmed skirts, beneath whose filmy borders 
peeped little feet incased in green-silk slippers, with heels of 
grotesque height ; a cord and tassels confined the robe to her 
round waist ; the hanging sleeves, open to the shoulders, re- 
vealed superb white arms ; and the mass of golden hair was 
gathered loosely up behind, with a mere soupgon of a cap 
perched on top, a knot of green ribbon contrasting with the 
low-down golden ripples over the forehead. Miss Elisabetha 
surveyed the attitude and the attire with disfavor; in her 
young days no lady in health wore a wrapper, or lolled on 
sofas. But the person, who was the pet prima donna of the 
day, English, with a world-wide experience and glory, knew 
nothing of such traditions. 

“ I have called, madame,” began the visitor, ignoring the 
slight with calm dignity (after all, how should “ a person ” 
know anything of the name of Daarg ?), “ on account of my — 
my ward, Theodore Oesterand.” 

“ Never heard of him,” replied the diva. It was her hour 


94 


MISS ELISABETHA. 


for siesta , and any infringement of her rules told upon the 
carefully tended, luxuriant beauty. 

“ I beg your pardon,” said Miss Elisabetha, with increased 
accentuation of her vowels. “ Theodore has had the honor 
of seeing you twice, and he has also sung for you.” 

“ What ! you mean my little bird of the tropics, my South- 
ern nightingale ! ” exclaimed the singer, raising herself from 
the cushions. — “ Lucille, why have you not placed a chair for 
this lady ? — I assure you, I take the greatest interest in the 
boy, Miss Dag.” 

“ Daarg,” replied Miss Elisabetha ; and then, with dignity, 
she took the chair, and, seating herself, crossed one slipper 
over the other, in the attitude number one of her youth. 
Number one had signified “ repose,” but little repose felt she 
now ; there was something in the attire of this person, some- 
thing in her yellow hair and white arms, something in the 
very air of the room, heavy with perfumes, that seemed to 
hurt and confuse her. 

“ I have never heard a tenor of more promise, never in my 
life ; and consider how much that implies, ma’m’selle ! You 
probably know who I am?” 

“ I have not that pleasure.” 

“ Bien, I will tell you. I am Kernadi.” 

Miss Elisabetha bowed, and inhaled salts from her smell- 
ing-bottle, her little finger elegantly separated from the others. 

“You do not mean to say that you have never heard of 
Kernadi — C6cile Kernadi ? ” said the diva, sitting fairly erect 
now in her astonishment. 

“ Never,” replied the maiden, not without a proud satis- 
faction in the plain truth of her statement. 

“ Where have you lived, ma’m’selle? ” 

“ Here, Mistress Kernadi.” 

The singer gazed at the figure before her in its ancient 
dress, and gradually a smile broke over her beautiful face. 

“Ma’m’selle,” she said, dismissing herself and her fame 
with a wave of her white hand, “ you have a treasure in Doro, 


MISS ELISABETHA. 


95 

a voice rare in a century ; and, in the name of the world, I 
ask you for him.” 

Miss Elisabetha sat speechless ; she was never quick with 
words, and now she was struck dumb. 

“ I will take him with me when I go in a few days,” pur- 
sued Kernadi ; “ and I promise you he shall have the very 
best instructors. His method now is bad — insufferably bad. 
The poor boy has had, of course, no opportunities ; but he is 
still young, and can unlearn as well as learn. Give him to 
me. I will relieve you of all expenses, so sure do I feel that 
he will do me credit in the end. I will even pass my word 
that he shall appear with me upon either the London or the 
Vienna stage before two years are out.” 

Miss Elisabetha had found her words at last. 

“Madame,” she said, “do you wish to make an opera- 
singer of the son of Petrus Oesterand ? ” 

“ I wish to make an opera-singer of this pretty Doro ; and, 
if this good Petrus is his father, he will, no doubt, give his 
consent.” 

“ Woman, he is dead.” 

“ So much the better ; he will not interfere with our plans, 
then,” replied the diva, gayly. 

Miss Elisabetha rose ; her tall form shook perceptibly. 

“ I have the honor to bid you good day,” she said, cour- 
tesying formally. 

The woman on the sofa sprang to her feet. 

“ You are offended ? ” she asked ; “ and why ? ” 

“ That you, a person of no name, of no antecedents, a 
public singer, should presume to ask for my boy, an Oesterand 
— should dare to speak of degrading him to your level ! ” 

Kernadi listened to these words in profound astonishment. 
Princes had bowed at her feet, blood-royal had watched for 
her smile. Who was this ancient creature, with her scarf and 
bag ? Perhaps, poor thing ! she did not comprehend ! The 
diva was not bad-hearted, and so, gently enough, she went 
over her offer a second time, dwelling upon and explaining its 


9 6 


MISS ELISABETHA. 


advantages. “ That he will succeed, I do not doubt,” she 
said ; “ but in any case he shall not want.” 

Miss Elisabetha was still standing. 

“ Want ? ” she repeated ; “ Theodore want ? I should 
think not.” 

“ He shall have the best instructors,” pursued Kernadi, all 
unheeding. To do her justice, she meant all she said. It is 
ever a fancy of singers to discover singers — provided they sing 
other roles. 

“ Madame, I have the honor of instructing him myself.” 

“Ah, indeed. Very kind of you, I am sure ; but — but no 
doubt you will be glad to give up the task. And he shall see 
all the great cities of Europe, and hear their music. I am 
down here merely for a short change — having taken cold in 
your miserable New York climate ; but I have, my usual en- 
gagements in London, St. Petersburg, Vienna, and Paris, you 
know.” 

“ No, madame, I do not know,” was the stiff reply. 

Kernadi opened her fine eyes still wider. It was true, 
then, and not a pretense. People really lived — white people, 
too — who knew nothing of her and her movements ! She 
thought, in her vague way, that she really must give some- 
thing to the missionaries ; and then she went back to 
Doro. 

“ It will be a great advantage to him to see artist-life 
abroad — ” she began. 

“ I intend him to see it,” replied Miss Elisabetha. 

“ But he should have the right companions — advisers — ” 

“7 shall be with him, madame.” 

The diva surveyed the figure before her, and amusement 
shone in her eyes. 

“ But you will find it fatiguing,” she said — “ so much jour- 
neying, so much change ! Nay, ma’m’selle, remain at home 
in your peaceful quiet, and trust the boy to me.” She had 
sunk back upon her cushions, and, catching a glimpse of her 
face in the mirror, she added, smiling : “ One thing more. 


MISS ELI SAB E THA . 


97 

You need not fear lest I should trifle with his young heart. I 
assure you I will not ; I shall be to him like a sister.” 

“You could scarcely be anything else, unless it was an 
aunt,” replied the ancient maiden ; “ I should judge you fif- 
teen years his senior, madame.” 

Which was so nearly accurate that the beauty started, and 
for the first time turned really angry. 

“ Will you give me the boy ? ” she said, shortly. “If he 
were here I might show you how easily — But, del! you 
could never understand such things ; let it pass. Will you 
give me the boy — yes or no ? ” 

“ No.” 

There was a silence. The diva lolled back on her cushions, 
and yawned. 

“ You must be a very selfish woman — I think the most 
selfish I have ever known,” she said coolly, tapping the floor 
with her little slippered feet, as if keeping time to a waltz. 

“ I— selfish ? ” 

“ Yes, you — selfish. And, by the by, what right have you 
to keep the boy at all ? Certainly, he resembles you in no- 
thing. What relation does he hold to you ? ” 

“ He is — he is my ward,” answered Miss Elisabetha, ner- 
vously rearranging her scarf. “ I bid you, madame, good 
day.” 

“ Ward ! ” pursued Kernadi ; “ that means nothing. Was 
his mother your sister? ” 

“ Nay ; his mother was a Spanish lady,” replied the troubled 
one, who knew not how to evade or lie. 

“ And the father — you spoke of him — was he a relative ? ” 

A sudden and painful blush dyed the thin old face, creep- 
ing up to the very temples. 

“Ah,” said the singer, with scornful amusement in her 
voice, “ if that is all, I shall take the boy without more ado ” ; 
and, lifting her glasses, she fixed her eyes full on the poor face 
before her, as though it was some rare variety of animal. 

“ You shall not have him ; I say you shall not ! ” cried the 

5 


9 8 


MISS ELISABETHA. 


elder woman, rousing to the contest like a tigress defending 
her young. 

“ Will you let him choose ? ” said Kernadi, with her mock- 
ing laugh. “ See ! I dare you to let him choose ” ; and, spring- 
ing to her feet, she wheeled her visitor around suddenly, so 
that they stood side by side before the mirror. It was a cruel 
deed. Never before had the old eyes realized that their mild 
blue had faded ; that the curls, once so soft, had grown gray 
and thin ; that the figure, once sylph-like, was now but angles ; 
and the throat, once so fair, yellow and sinewed. It came 
upon her suddenly — the face, the coloring, and the dress ; a 
veil was torn away, and she saw it all. At the same instant 
gleamed the golden beauty of the other, the folds of her flow- 
ing robe, the mists of her laces. It was too much. With 
ashen face the stricken woman turned away, and sought the 
door-knob ; she could not speak ; a sob choked all utterance. 
Doro would choose. 

But C£cile Kernadi rushed forward ; her better nature was 
touched, 

" No, no/’ she said impulsively, “ you shall not go so. 
See ! I will promise ; you shall keep the boy, and I will let 
him go. He is all you have, perhaps, and I — I have so much ! 
Do you not believe me ? I will go away this very day and 
leave no trace behind. He will pine, but it will pass — a boy's 
first fancy. I promised him my picture, but you shall take it. 
There ! Now go, go, before I regret what I do. He has such 
a voice ! — but never mind, you shall not be robbed by me. 
Farewell, poor lady; I, too, may grow old some day. But 
hear one little word of advice from my lips : The boy has 
waked up to life ; he will never be again the child you have 
known. Though I go, another will come ; take heed ! " 

That night, in the silence of her own room, Miss Elisabetha 
prayed a little prayer, and then, with firm hand, burned the 
bright picture to ashes. 

Wild was the grief of the boy ; but the fair enchantress 
was gone. He wept, he pined ; but she was gone. He fell 


MISS ELISABETHA. 


99 


ill, and lay feverish upon his narrow bed ; but she was none 
the less gone, and nothing brought her back. Miss Elisabetha 
tended trim with a great patience, and spoke no word. When 
he raved of golden hair, she never said, “ I have seen it " ; 
when he cried, “ Her voice, her angel-voice ! ” she never said, 
“ I have heard it." But one day she dropped these words : 
“ Was she not a false woman, Theodore, who went away not 
caring, although under promise to see you, and to give you 
her picture ? ” And then she walked quietly to her own 
room, and barred the door, and wept ; for the first time in 
her pure life she had burdened her soul with falsehood — yet 
would she have done it ten times over to save the boy. 

Time and youth work wonders ; it is not that youth for- 
gets so soon ; but this — time is then so long. Doro recovered, 
almost in spite of himself, and the days grew calm again. 
Harder than ever worked Miss Elisabetha, giving herself 
hardly time to eat or sleep. Doro studied a little listlessly, 
but he no longer cared for his old amusements. He had freed 
his pets : the mocking-birds had flown back to the barrens, 
and the young alligators, who had lived in the sunken barrel, 
found themselves unexpectedly obliged to earn their own 
living along the marshes and lagoons. But of music he would 
have none ; the piano stood silent, and his guitar had disap- 
peared. 

“ It is wearing itself away," thought the old maid ; “ then 
he will come back to me.” But nightly she counted her secret 
store, and, angered at its smallness, worked harder and harder, 
worked until her shoulders ached and her hands grew knotted. 
“ One more year, only one more year,” she thought ; “ then 
he shall go ! ” And through all the weary toil these words 
echoed like a chant — “ One more year — only one more ! ” 

Two months passed, and then the spring came to the 
winterless land — came with the yellow jasmine. “ But four 
months now, and he shall go," said Miss Elisabetha, in her 
silent musings over the bag of coin. “ I have shortened the 
time by double tasks." Lightly she stepped about the house, 


lOO 


MISS ELISABETHA. 


counted her orange-buds, and reckoned up the fish. She 
played the cathedral organ now on Sundays, making inward 
protest after every note, and sitting rigidly with hbr back 
toward the altar in the little high-up gallery during the ser- 
mon, as much as to say : “ It is only my body which is here. 
Behold ! I do not even bow down in the house of Rimmon.” 
Thus laboring early and late, with heart, and hand, and 
strength, she saw but little of Doro, save at meals and through 
his one hour of listless study ; but the hidden hope was a 
comforter, and she worked and trusted on. There was one 
little gleam of light : he had begun to play again on his guitar, 
softly, furtively, and as it were in secret. But she heard him, 
and was cheered. 

One evening, toiling home through the white sand after a 
late music-lesson, laden with a bag of flour which she would 
not trust Viny to buy, she heard a girl’s voice singing. It 
was a plaintive, monotonous air that she sang, simple as a 
Gregorian chant ; but her voice was a velvet contralto, as full 
of rich tones as a peach is full of lusciousness. The con- 
tralto voice is like the violoncello. 

“ The voice is not bad,” thought Miss Elisabetha, listening 
critically, “ but there is a certain element of the sauvage in 
it. No lady, no person of culture, would permit herself to 
sing in that way ; it must be one of the Minorcans.” 

Still, in spite of prejudices, the music in her turned her 
steps toward the voice ; her slippers made no sound, and she 
found it. A young girl, a Minorcan, sat under a bower of 
jasmine, leaning back against her lover’s breast ; her dark 
eyes were fixed on the evening star, and she sang as the bird 
sings, naturally, unconsciously, for the pure pleasure of sing- 
ing. She was a pretty child. Miss Elisabetha knew her well 
— Catalina, one of a thriftless, olive-skinned family down in 
the town. “ Not fourteen, and a lover already,” thought the 
old maid with horror. “ Would it be of any use, I wonder, if 
I spoke to her mother ? ” Here the lover — the Paul of this Vir- 
ginia — moved, and the shadows slid off his face ; it was Doro ! 


MISS ELI SAB E THA. 


101 


Alone in her chamber sat Miss Elisabetha. Days had 
passed, but of no avail. Even now the boy was gone to the 
tumble-down house in the village where Catalina’s little broth- 
ers and sisters swarmed out of doors and windows, and the 
brown, broad mother bade him welcome with a hearty slap 
on the shoulder. She had tried everything — argument, en- 
treaty, anger, grief— and failed ; there remained now only the 
secret, the secret of years, of much toil and many pains. The 
money was not yet sufficient for two ; so be it. She would 
stay herself, and work on ; but he should go. Before long 
she would hear his step, perhaps not until late, for those peo- 
ple had no settled hours (here a remembrance of all their 
ways made her shudder), but come he would in time ; this 
was still his home. At midnight she heard the footfall, and 
opening the door called gently, “ Theodore, Theodore.” The 
youth came, but slowly. Many times had she called him 
lately, and he was weary of the strife. Had he not told her 
all — the girl singing as she passed, her voice haunting him, 
his search for her, and her smile ; their meetings in the cha- 
parral, where she sang to him by the hour, and then, naturally 
as the bud opens, their love ? It seemed to him an all-suffi- 
cient story, and he could not understand the long debates. 

“And the golden-haired woman,” Miss Elisabetha had 
said ; “ she sang to you too, Theodore.” 

“ I had forgotten her, aunt,” replied the youth simply. 

So he came but slowly. This time, however, the voice 
was gentle, and there was no anger in the waiting eyes. She 
told him all as he sat there : the story of his father, who was 
once her friend, she said with a little quiver in her voice, the 
death of the young widowed mother, her own coming to this 
far Southern land, and her long labors for him. Then she 
drew a picture of the bright future opening before him, and 
bringing forth the bag showed him its contents, the savings 
and earnings of seventeen years, tied in packages with the 
contents noted on their labels. “ All is for you, dear child,” 
she said, “ for you are still but a child. Take it and go. I 


102 


MISS ELIS ABE THA. 


had planned to accompany you, but I give that up for the 
present. • I will remain and see to the sale of everything here, 
and then I will join you — that is, if you wish it, dear. Per- 
haps you will enjoy traveling alone, and — and I have plenty 
of friends to whom I can go, and shall be quite content, dear 
— quite content.” 

“ Where is it that you wish me to go, aunt ? ” asked Doro 
coldly. They were going over the same ground, then, after all. 

“ Abroad, dear — abroad, to all the great cities of the world,” 
said the aunt, faltering a little as she met his eyes. “ You are 
well educated, Theodore ; I have taught you myself. You are 
a gentleman’s son, and I have planned for you a life suited to 
your descent. I have written to my cousins in Amsterdam ; 
they have never seen me, but for the sake of the name they 
will — O my boy, my darling, tell me that you will go ! ” she 
burst forth, breaking into entreaty as she read his face. 

But Doro shook off her hands. “ Aunt,” he said, rising, 
“ why will you distress yourself thus ? I shall marry Catalina, 
and you know it ; have I not told you so ? Let us speak no 
more on the subject. As to the money, I care not for it ; 
keep it.” And he turned toward the door as if to end the 
discussion. But Miss Elisabetha followed and threw herself 
on her knees before him. 

“ Child ! ” she cried, “ give me, give yourself a little delay ; 
only that, a little delay. Take the money— go ; and if at the 
end of the year your mind is still the same, I will say not one 
word, no, not one, against it. She is but young, too young to 
marry. O my boy, for whom I have labored, for whom I have 
planned, for whom I have prayed, will you too forsake me?” 

“ Of course not, aunt,” replied Doro ; “ I mean you to 
live with us always ” ; and with his strong young arms he half 
led, half carried her back to her arm-chair. She sat speech- 
less. To live with them always— with thejn / Words surged 
to her lips in a flood— then, as she met his gaze, surged back 
to her heart again. There was that in the expression of his 
face which told her all words were vain ; the placid, far-away 


MISS ELIS ABE THA. 


103 


look, unmoved in spite of her trouble, silenced argument and 
killed hope. As well attack a creamy summer cloud with 
axes ; as well attempt to dip up the ocean with a cup. She 
saw it all in a flash, as one sees years of past life in the mo- 
ment before drowning; and she was drowning, poor soul! 
Yet Doro saw nothing, felt nothing, save that his aunt was 
growing into an old woman with foolish fancies, and that he 
himself was sleepy. And then he fell to thinking of his love, 
and all her enchanting ways — her little angers and quick re- 
pentances, the shoulder turned away in pretended scorn, and 
the sudden waves of tenderness that swept him into paradise. 
So he stood dreaming, while tearless, silent Miss Elisabetha 
sat before her broken hopes. At last Doro, coming back to 
reality, murmured, “ Aunt, you will like her when you know 
her better, and she will take good care of you.” 

But the aunt only shuddered. 

“Theodore, Theodore!” she cried, “will you break my 
heart ? Shall the son of Petrus Oesterand marry so ? ” 

“ I do not know what you mean by ‘ so,’ aunt. All men 
marry, and why not I ? I never knew my father ; but, if he 
were here, I feel sure he would see Catalina with my eyes. 
Certainly, in all my life, I have never seen a face so fair, or 
eyes so lustrous.” 

« Child, you have seen nothing— nothing. But I intended. 
Heaven knows I intended — ” 

“ It makes no difference now, aunt ; do not distress your- 
self about it.” 

“ Theodore, I have loved you long — your youth has not 
been an unhappy one ; will you, for my sake, go for this one 
year ? ” she pleaded, with quivering lips. 

The young man shook his head with a half smile. 

“ Dear aunt,” he said gently, “ pray say no more. I do 
not care to see the world ; I am satisfied here. As to Cata- 
lina, I love her. Is not that enough ? ” He bent and kissed 
her cold forehead, and then went away to his happy dreams ; 
and, if he thought of her at all as he lingered in the soft twi- 


104 


MISS ELISABETHA. 


light that comes before sleep, it was only to wonder over her 
distress — a wonder soon indolently comforted by the belief 
that she would be calm and reasonable in the morning. But, 
across the hall, a gray old woman sat, her money beside her, 
and the hands that had earned it idle in her lap. God keep 
us from such a vigil ! 

And did she leave him ? No ; not even when the “ him ” 
became “ them.” 

The careless young wife, knowing nothing save how to 
love, queened it right royally over the old house, and the little 
brown brothers and sisters ran riot through every room. The 
piano was soon broken by the ignorant hands that sounded 
its chords at random ; but only Doro played on it now, and 
nothing pleased him so well as to improvise melodies from 
the plaintive Minorcan' songs the little wife sang in her velvet 
voice. Years passed ; the money was all spent, and the 
house full — a careless, idle, ignorant, happy brood, asking for 
nothing, planning not at all, working not at all, but loving 
each other in their own way, contented to sit in the sunshine, 
and laugh, and eat, and sing, all the day long. The tall, gaunt 
figure that came and went among them, laboring ceaselessly, 
striving always against the current, they regarded with toler-. 
ating eyes as a species differing from theirs, but good in its 
way, especially for work. The children loved the still silent 
old woman, and generously allowed her to take care of them 
until she tried to teach them ; then away they flew like wild 
birds of the forest, and not one learned more than the alpha- 
bet. 

Doro died first, a middle-aged man ; gently he passed 
away without pain, without a care. “You have been very 
good to me, aunt ; my life has been a happy one ; I have had 
nothing to wish for,” he murmured, as she bent to catch the 
last look from his dying eyes. 

He was gone ; and she bore on the burden he had left to 
her. I saw her last year — an old, old woman, but working still. 


OLD GARDISTON 


One by one they died — 

Last of all their race ; 

Nothing left but pride, 

Lace and buckled hose ; 

Their quietus made, 

On their dwelling-place 

Ruthless hands are laid : 

Down the old house goes ! 

Many a bride has stood 
In yon spacious room ; 

Here her hand was wooed 
Underneath the rose ; 

O’er that sill the dead 

Reached the family tomb ; 

All that were have fled — 

Down the old house goes ! 

Edmund Clarence Stedman. 


Old Gardiston was a manor-house down in the rice- 
lands, six miles from a Southern seaport. It had been 
called Old Gardiston for sixty or seventy years, which 
showed that it must have belonged to colonial days, since 
no age under that of a century could have earned for it 
that honorable title in a neighborhood where the Declara- 
tion of Independence was still considered an event of com- 
paratively modern times. The war was over, and the mis- 
tress of the house, Miss Margaretta Gardiston, lay buried in 
St. Mark’s churchyard, near by. The little old church had • 
long been closed ; the very road to its low stone doorway 
was overgrown, and a second forest had grown up around 
it; but the churchyard was still open to those of the dead 


io6 


OLD GARDISTON. 


who had a right there ; and certainly Miss Margaretta had 
this right, seeing that father, grandfather, and great-grand- 
father all lay buried there, and their memorial tablets, quaint- 
ly emblazoned, formed a principal part of the decorations of 
the ancient little sanctuary in the wilderness. There was no 
one left at Old Gardiston now save Cousin Copeland and 
Gardis Duke, a girl of seventeen years. Miss Margaretta’s 
niece and heir. Poor little Gardis, having been born a girl 
when she should have been a boy, was christened with the 
family name — a practice not uncommon in some parts of the 
South, where English customs of two centuries ago still retain 
their hold with singular tenacity ; but the three syllables were 
soon abbreviated to two for common use, and the child grew 
up with the quaint name of Gardis. 

They were at breakfast now, the two remaining members 
of the family, in the marble-floored dining-room. The latticed 
windows were open ; birds were singing outside, and roses 
blooming ; a flood of sunshine lit up every corner of the apart- 
ment, showing its massive Chinese vases, its carved ivory 
ornaments, its hanging lamp of curious shape, and its spindle- 
legged sideboard, covered with dark-colored plates and plat- 
ters ornamented with dark-blue dragons going out to walk, 
and crocodiles circling around fantastically roofed temples as 
though they were waiting for the worshipers to come out in 
order to make a meal of them. But, in spite of these acces- 
sories, the poor old room was but a forlorn place : the marble 
flooring was sunken and defaced, portions were broken into 
very traps for unwary feet, and its ancient enemy, the pene- 
trating dampness, had finally conquered the last resisting 
mosaic, and climbed the walls, showing in blue and yellow 
streaks on the old-fashioned moldings. There had been no 
fire in the tiled fireplace for many years; Miss Margaretta 
did not approve of fires, and wood was costly : this last rea- 
son, however, was never mentioned ; and Gardis had grown 
into a girl of sixteen before she knew the comfort of the 
sparkling little fires that shine on the hearths morning and 


OLD GARDISTON. 


10 7 


evening during the short winters in well-appointed Southern 
homes. At that time she had spent a few days in the city 
with some family friends who had come out of the war with 
less impoverishment than their neighbors. Miss Margaretta 
did not approve of them exactly ; it was understood that all 
Southerners of “ our class ” were “ impoverished.” She did 
not refuse the cordial invitation in toto , but she sent for Gar- 
dis sooner than was expected, and set about carefully remov- 
ing from the girl’s mind any wrong ideas that might have 
made a lodgment there. And Gardis, warmly loving her aunt, 
and imbued with all the family pride from her birth, imme- 
diately cast from her the bright little comforts she had met in 
the city as plebeian, and, going up stairs to the old drawing- 
room, dusted the relics enshrined there with a new rever- 
ence for them, glorifying herself in their undoubted antiquity. 
Fires, indeed ! Certainly not. 

The breakfast-table was spread with snowy damask, worn 
thin almost to gossamer, and fairly embroidered with delicate 
darning ; the cups and plates belonged to the crocodile set, 
and the meager repast was at least daintily served. Cousin 
Copeland had his egg, and Gardis satisfied her young appetite 
with fish caught in the river behind the house by Pompey, and 
a fair amount of Dinah’s corn-bread. The two old slaves had 
refused to leave Gardiston House. They had been trained all 
their lives by Miss Margaretta ; and now that she was gone, 
they took pride in keeping the expenses of the table, as she 
had kept them, reduced to as small a sum as possible, know- 
ing better than poor Gardis herself the pitiful smallness of the 
family income, derived solely from the rent of an old ware- 
house in the city. For the war had not impoverished Gardis- 
ton House ; it was impoverished long before. Acre by acre 
the land had gone, until nothing was left save a small corn- 
field and the flower-garden ; piece by piece the silver had 
vanished, until nothing was left save three teaspoons, three 
tablespoons, and four forks. The old warehouse had brought 
in little rent during those four long years, and they had fared 


io8 


OLD GARDISTON. 


hardly at Gardiston. Still, in their isolated situation away 
from the main roads, their well-known poverty a safeguard, 
they had not so much as heard a drum or seen a uniform, 
blue or gray, and this was a rare and fortunate exemption in 
those troublous times ; and wheq the war was at last ended, 
Miss Margaretta found herself no poorer than she was before, 
with this great advantage added, that now everybody was 
poor, and, indeed, it was despicable to be anything else. She 
bloomed out into a new cheerfulness under this congenial 
state of things, and even invited one or two contemporaries 
still remaining on the old plantations in the neighborhood to 
spend several days at Gardiston. Two ancient dames accepted 
the invitation, and the state the three kept together in the old 
drawing-room under the family portraits, the sweep of their 
narrow-skirted, old-fashioned silk gowns on the inlaid stair- 
case when they went down to dinner, the supreme uncon- 
sciousness of the break-neck condition of the marble flooring 
and the mold-streaked walls, the airy way in which they drank 
their tea out of the crocodile cups, and told little stories of 
fifty years before, filled Gardis with admiring respect. She 
sat, as it were, in the shadow of their greatness, and obedient- 
ly ate only of those dishes that required a fork, since the three 
spoons were, of course, in use. During this memorable visit 
Cousin Copeland was always “engaged in his study” at 
meal-times ; but in the evening he appeared, radiant and 
smiling, and then the four played whist together on the Chi- 
nese table, and the ladies fanned themselves with stately 
grace, while Cousin Copeland dealt not only the cards, 
but compliments also — both equally old-fashioned and well 
preserved. 

But within this first year of peace Miss Margaretta had died 
— an old lady of seventy-five, but bright and strong as a winter 
apple. Gardis and Cousin Copeland, left alone, moved on in 
the same way : it was the only way they knew. Cousin Cope- 
land lived only in the past, Gardis in the present ; and indeed 
the future, so anxiously considered always by the busy, rest- 


OLD GARDISTON. 


109 

less Northern mind/jias never been lifted into the place of 
supreme importance at the Souths 

When breakfast was over, Gardis went up stairs into the 
drawing-room. Cousin Copeland, remarking, in his busy 
little way, that he had important work awaiting him, retired 
to his study — a round room in the tower, where, at an old 
desk with high back full of pigeon-holes, he had been accus- 
tomed for years to labor during a portion of the day over 
family documents a century or two old, recopying them with 
minute care, adding foot-notes, and references leading back 
by means of red-ink stars to other documents, and appending 
elaborately phrased little comments neatly signed in flourishes 
with his initials and the date, such as “ Truly a doughty deed. 
C. B. G. 1852.” — “ ‘ Worthy,' quotha ? Nay, it seemeth unto 
my poor comprehension a marvelous kindness ! C. B. G. 
1856.” — “ May we all profit by this ! C. B. G. 1858." 

This morning, as usual, Gardis donned her gloves, threw 
open the heavy wooden shutters, and, while the summer 
morning sunshine flooded the room, she moved from piece to 
piece of the old furniture, carefully dusting it all. The room 
was large and lofty ; there was no carpet on the inlaid floor, 
but a tapestry rug lay under the table in the center of the 
apartment ; everything was spindle-legged, chairs, tables, the 
old piano; two cabinets, a sofa, a card-table, and two little 
tabourets embroidered in Scriptural scenes, reduced now to 
shadows, Joseph and his wicked brethren having faded to the 
same dull yellow hue, which Gardis used to think was not the 
discrimination that should have been shown between the just 
and the unjust. The old cabinets were crowded with curious 
little Chinese images and vases, and on the high mantel were 
candelabra with more crocodiles on them, and a large mirror 
which had so long been veiled in gauze that Gardis had never 
fairly seen the fat, gilt cherubs that surrounded it. A few 
inches of wax-candle still remained in the candelabra, but 
they were never lighted, a tallow substitute on the table serv- 
ing as a nucleus during the eight months of warm weather 


10 


OLD GARDISTON. 


when the evenings were spent in the drawing-room. When 
it was really cold, a fire was kindled in the boudoir — a narrow 
chamber in the center of the large rambling old mansion, 
where, with closed doors and curtained windows, the three 
sat together, Cousin Copeland reading aloud, generally from 
the “ Spectator,” often pausing to jot down little notes as they 
occurred to him in his orderly memorandum-book — “ mere 
outlines of phrases, but sufficiently full to recall the desired 
train of thought,” he observed. The ladies embroidered, Miss 
Margaretta sitting before the large frame she had used when 
a girl. They did all the sewing for the household (very little 
new material, and much repairing of old), but these domestic 
labors were strictly confined to the privacy of their own apart- 
ments ; in the drawing-room or boudoir they always embroid- 
ered. Gardis remembered this with sadness as she removed 
the cover from the large frame, and glanced at “ Moses in the 
Bulrushes,” which her inexperienced hand could never hope 
to finish ; she was thinking of her aunt, but any one else would 
have thought of the bulrushes, which were now pink, now 
saffron, and now blue, after some mediaeval system of floss- 
silk vegetation. 

Having gone all around the apartment and dusted every- 
thing, Chinese images and all, Gardis opened the old piano 
and gently played a little tune. Miss Margaretta had been 
her only teacher, and the young girl’s songs were old-fash- 
ioned ; but the voice was sweet and full, and before she knew 
it she was filling the house with her melody. 

“ Little Cupid one day in a myrtle-bough strayed, 

And among the sweet blossoms he playfully played, 
Plucking many a sweet from the boughs of the tree, 

Till he felt that his finger was stung by a bee,” 

sang Gardis, and went on blithely through the whole, giving 
Mother Venus’s advice archly, and adding a shower of impro- 
vised trills at the end. 


OLD GARDISTON. 


11 


“ Bravo ! ” said a voice from the garden below. 

Rushing to the casement, Miss Duke beheld, first with 
astonishment, then dismay, two officers in the uniform of the 
United States army standing at the front door. They bowed 
courteously, and one of them said, “ Can I see the lady of the 
house ? ” 

“ I — I am the lady,” replied Gardis, confusedly ; then 
drawing back, with the sudden remembrance that she should 
not have shown herself at all, she ran swiftly up to the study 
for Cousin Copeland. But Cousin Copeland was not there, 
and the little mistress remembered with dismay that old Dinah 
was out in the corn-field, and that Pompey had gone fishing. 
There was nothing for it, then, but to go down and face the 
strangers. Summoning all her self-possession, Miss Duke 
descended. She would have preferred to hold parley from 
the window over the doorway, like the ladies of olden time, 
but she feared it would not be dignified, seeing that the times 
were no longer olden, and therefore she went down to the 
entrance where the two were awaiting her. “ Shall I ask 
them in ? ” she thought. “ What would Aunt Margaretta 
have done ? ” The Gardiston spirit was hospitable to the 
core ; but these — these were the Vandals, the despots, under 
whose presence the whole fair land was groaning. No ; she 
would not ask them in. 

The elder officer, a grave young man of thirty, was spokes- 
man. “ Do I address Miss Gardiston ? ” he said. 

“ I am Miss Duke. My aunt. Miss Gardiston, is not liv- 
ing,” replied Gardis. 

“Word having been received that the yellow fever has 
appeared on the coast, we have been ordered to take the 
troops a few miles inland and go into camp immediately, Miss 
Duke. The grove west of this house, on the bank of the 
river, having been selected as camping-ground for a portion 
of the command, we have called to say that you need feel no 
alarm at the proximity of the soldiers ; they will be under 
strict orders not to trespass upon your grounds.” 


112 


OLD GARDISTON. 


“ Thanks,” said Gardis mechanically ; but she was alarmed ; 
they both saw that. 

“ I assure you, Miss Duke, that there is not the slightest 
cause for nervousness,” said the younger officer, bowing as he 
spoke. 

“And your servants will not be enticed away, either,” 
added the other. 

“We have only two, and they — would not go,” replied 
Gardis, not aggressively, but merely stating her facts. 

The glimmer of a smile crossed the face of the younger 
officer, but the other remained unmoved. 

“ My name, madam, is Newell — David Newell, captain 
commanding the company that will be encamped here. I 
beg you to send me word immediately if anything occurs to 
disturb your quiet,” he said. 

Then the two saluted the little mistress with formal cour- 
tesy, and departed, walking down the path together with a 
quick step and soldierly bearing, as though they were on 
parade. 

“ Ought I to have asked them in ? ” thought Gardis ; and 
she went slowly up to the drawing-room again and closed the 
piano. “ I wonder who said * bravo ’ ? The younger one, I 
presume.” And she presumed correctly. 

At lunch (corn-bread and milk) Cousin Copeland’s old- 
young face appeared promptly at the dining-room door. 
Cousin Copeland, Miss Margaretta’s cousin, was a little old 
bachelor, whose thin dark hair had not turned gray, and 
whose small bright eyes needed no spectacles ; he dressed 
always in black, with low shoes on his small feet, and his 
clothes seemed never to wear out, perhaps because his little 
frame hardly touched them anywhere ; the cloth certainly was 
not strained. Everything he wore was so old-fashioned, how- 
ever, that he looked like the pictures of the high-collared, 
solemn little men who, accompanied by ladies all bonnet, are 
depicted in English Sunday-school books following funeral 
processions, generally of the good children who die young. 


OLD GARDISTON. 


*3 


“ O Cousin Copeland, where were you this morning when 
I went up to your study ? ” began Gardis, full of the event of 
the morning. 

“You may well ask where I was, my child,” replied the 
bachelor, cutting his toasted corn-bread into squares with 
mathematical precision. “A most interesting discovery — 
most interesting. Not being thoroughly satisfied as to the 
exact identity of the first wife of one of the second cousins of 
our grandfather, a lady who died young and left no descen- 
dants, yet none the less a Gardiston, at least by marriage, the 
happy idea occurred to me to investigate more fully the con- 
tents of the papers in barrel number two on the east side of 
the central garret — documents that I myself classified in 1849, 
as collateral merely, not relating to the main line. I assure 
you, my child, that I have spent there, over that barrel, a most 
delightful morning — most delightful. I had not realized that 
there was so much interesting matter in store for me when I 
shall have finished the main line, which will be, I think, in 
about a year and a half — a year and a half. And I have good 
hopes of finding there, too, valuable information respecting 
this first wife of one of the second cousins of our respected 
grandfather, a lady whose memory, by some strange neglect, 
has been suffered to fall into oblivion. I shall be proud to 
constitute myself the one to rescue it for the benefit of pos- 
terity,” continued the little man, with chivalrous enthusiasm, 
as he took up his spoon. (There was one spoon to spare 
now; Gardis often thought of this with a saddened heart.) 
Miss Duke had not interrupted her cousin by so much as an 
impatient glance ; trained to regard him with implicit respect, 
and to listen always to his gentle, busy little stream of talk, 
she waited until he had finished all he had to say about this 
“ first wife of one of the second cousins of our grandfather ” 
(who, according to the French phrase-books, she could not 
help thinking, should have inquired immediately for the green 
shoe of her aunt’s brother-in-law’s wife) before she told her 
story. Cousin Copeland shook his head many times during 


n 4 


OLD GARDISTON. 


the recital. He had not the bitter feelings of Miss Margaretta 
concerning the late war ; in fact, he had never come down 
much farther than the Revolution, having merely skirmished 
a little, as it were, with the war of 1812 ; but he knew his 
cousin’s opinions, and respected their memory. So he “ ear- 
nestly hoped ” that some other site would be selected for the 
camp. Upon being told that the blue army- wagons had al- 
ready arrived, he then “ earnestly hoped ” that the encamp- 
ment would not be of long continuance. Cousin Copeland 
had hoped a great many things during his life ; his capacity 
for hoping was cheering and unlimited ; a hope carefully 
worded and delivered seemed to him almost the same thing 
as reality ; he made you a present of it, and rubbed his little 
hands cheerfully afterward, as though now all had been said. 

“ Do you think I should have asked them in ? ” said Gar- 
dis, hesitatingly. 

“ Most certainly, most certainly. Hospitality has ever 
been one of our characteristics as a family,” said Cousin 
Copeland, finishing the last spoonful of milk, which had come 
out exactly even with the last little square of corn-bread. 

" But I did not ask them.” 

“ Do I hear you aright ? You did not ask them, Cousin 
Gardiston ? ” said the little bachelor, pausing gravely by the 
table, one hand resting on its shining mahogany, the other 
extended in the attitude of surprise. 

“ Yes, Cousin Copeland, you do. But these are officers of 
the United States army, and you know Aunt Margaretta’s 
feelings regarding them.” 

“ True,” said Cousin Copeland, dropping his arm ; “ you 
are right ; I had forgotten. But it is a very sad state of 
things, my dear— very sad. It was not so in the old days at 
Gardiston House : then we should have invited them to din- 
ner.” 

" We could not do that,” said Gardis thoughtfully, “ on 
account of forks and spoons ; there would not be enough to 
go — But I would not invite them anyway,” she added, the 


OLD GARDISTON. 


J1 5 

color rising in her cheeks, and her eyes flashing. “ Are they 
not our enemies, and the enemies of our country ? Vandals ? 
Despots ? ” 

“Certainly,” said Cousin Copeland, escaping from these 
signs of feminine disturbance with gentle haste. Long be- 
fore, he was accustomed to remark to a bachelor friend that 
an atmosphere of repose was best adapted to his constitution 
and to his work. He therefore now retired to the first wife 
of the second cousin of his grandfather, and speedily forgot 
all about the camp and the officers. Not so Gardis. Putting 
on her straw hat, she went out into the garden to attend to 
her flowers and work off her annoyance. Was it annoyance, 
or excitement merely ? She did not know. But she did know 
that the grove was full of men and tents, and she could see 
several of the blue-coats fishing in the river. “ Very well,” 
she said to herself hotly ; “ we shall have no dinner, then ! ” 
But the river was not hers, and so she went on clipping the 
roses, and tying back the vines all the long bright afternoon, 
until old Dinah came to call her to dinner. As she went, the 
bugle sounded from the grove, and she seemed to be obeying 
its summons ; instantly she sat down on a bench to wait until 
its last echo had died away. “ I foresee that I shall hate that 
bugle,” she said to herself. 

The blue-coats were encamped in the grove three long 
months. Captain Newell and the lieutenant, Roger Saxton, 
made no more visits at Gardiston House; but, when they 
passed by and saw the little mistress in the garden or at the 
window, they saluted her with formal courtesy. And the 
lieutenant looked back ; yes, there was no doubt of that — the 
lieutenant certainly looked back, Saxton was a handsome 
youth ; tall and finely formed, he looked well in his uniform, 
and knew it. Captain Newell was not so tall — a gray-eyed, 
quiet young man. “ Commonplace,” said Miss Gardis. The 
bugle still gave forth its silvery summons. “ It is insupport- 
able,” said the little mistress daily; and daily Cousin Copeland 
replied, “ Certainly.” But the bugle sounded on all the same. 


6 


OLD GARDISTON. 


One day a deeper wrath came. Miss Duke discovered 
Dinah in the act of taking cakes to the camp to sell to the 
soldiers ! 

“ Well, Miss Gardis, dey pays me well for it, and we s 
next to not’ing laid up for de winter," replied the old woman 
anxiously, as the irate little mistress forbade the sale of so 
much as “ one kernel of corn.” 

“ Dey don’t want de com, but dey pays well for de cakes, 
dearie Miss Gardis. Yer see, yer don’t know not’ing about 
it ; it’s only ole Dinah makin’ a little money for herself and 
Pomp,” pleaded the faithful creature, who would have given 
her last crumb for the family, and died content. But Gardis 
sternly forbade all dealings with the camp from that time 
forth, and then she went up to her room and cried like a child. 
“ They knew it, of' course,” she thought ; “ no doubt they 
have had many a laugh over the bakery so quietly carried on 
at Gardiston House. They are capable of supposing even 
that / sanctioned it.” And with angry tears she fell to plan- 
ning how she could best inform them of their mistake, and 
overwhelm them with her scorn. She prepared several crush- 
ing little speeches, and held them in reserve for use ; but the 
officers never came to Gardiston House, and of course she 
never went to the camp — no, nor so much as looked that way ; 
so there was no good opportunity for delivering them. One 
night, however, the officers did come to Gardiston House — 
not only the officers, but all the men ; and Miss Duke was 
very glad to see them. 

It happened in this way. The unhappy State had fallen 
into the hands of double-faced, conscienceless whites, who 
used the newly enfranchised blacks as tools for their, evil pur- 
poses. These leaders were sometimes emigrant Northerners, 
sometimes renegade Southerners, but always rascals. In the 
present case they had inflamed their ignorant followers to 
riotous proceedings in the city, and the poor blacks, fancying 
that the year of jubilee had come, when each man was to 
have a plantation, naturally began by ejecting the resident 


OLD GARDISTON. 


117 

owners before the grand division of spoils. At least this was 
their idea. During the previous year, when the armies were 
still marching through the land, they had gone out now and 
then in a motiveless sort of way and burned the fine planta- 
tion residences near the city ; and now, chance having brought 
Gardiston to their minds, out they came, inconsequent and 
reasonless as ever, to burn Gardiston. But they did not know 
the United States troops were there. 

There was a siege of ten minutes, two or three volleys 
from the soldiers, and then a disorderly retreat ; one or two 
wounded were left on the battle-field (Miss Duke’s flower- 
garden), and the dining-room windows were broken. Beyond 
this there was no slaughter, and the victors drew off their 
forces in good order to the camp, leaving the officers to re- 
ceive the thanks of the household — Cousin Copeland, envel- 
oped in a mammoth dressing-gown that had belonged to his 
grandfather, and Gardis, looking distractingly pretty in a has- 
tily donned short skirt and a little white sack (she had no 
dressing-gown), with her brown hair waving over her shoul- 
ders, and her cheeks scarlet from excitement. Roger Saxton 
fell into love on the spot : hitherto he had only hovered, as it 
were, on the border. 

“ Had you any idea she was so exquisitely beautiful ? ” he 
exclaimed, as they left the old house in the gray light of 
dawn. 

“ Miss Duke is not exquisitely beautiful ; she is not even 
beautiful,” replied the slow-voiced Newell. “ She has the 
true Southern colorless, or rather cream-colored, complexion, 
and her features are quite irregular.” 

“ Colorless ! I never saw more beautiful coloring in my 
life than she had to-night,” exclaimed Saxton. 

“ To-night, yes ; I grant that. But it took a good-sized 
riot to bring it to the surface,” replied the impassive captain. 

A guard was placed around the house at night and pickets 
sent down the road for some time after this occurrence. Gar- 
dis, a prey to conflicting feelings, deserted her usual haunts 


1 18 


OLD GARD1ST0N. 


and shut herself up in her own room, thinking, thinking what 
she ought to do. In the mean time, beyond a formal note of 
inquiry delivered daily by a wooden-faced son of Mars, the 
two officers made no effort toward a further acquaintance ; 
the lieutenant was on fire to attempt it, but the captain held 
him back. “ It is her place to make the advances now,” he 
said. It was ; and Gardis knew it. 

One morning she emerged from her retreat, and with a 
decided step sought Cousin Copeland in his study. The little 
man had been disquieted by the night attack ; it had come to • 
him vaguely once or twice since then that perhaps there 
might be other things to do in the world besides copying 
family documents ; but the nebula — it was not even a definite 
thought — had faded, and now he was at work again with 
more ardor than ever. 

“ Cousin Copeland,” said Gardis, appearing at the door of 
the study, “ I have decided at last to yield to your wishes, and 
— and invite the officers to dinner.” 

“ By all means,” said Cousin Copeland, putting down his 
pen and waving his hands with a hearty little air of acquies- 
cence — “ by all means.” It was not until long afterward that 
he remembered he had never expressed any wish upon the 
subject whatever. But it suited Gardis to imagine that he 
had done so ; so she imagined it. 

“ We have little to work with,” continued the little mis- 
tress of the house ; “ but Dinah is an excellent cook, and — 
and — O cousin, I do not wish to do it ; I can not bear the 
mere thought of it ; but oh ! we must, we must.” Tears 
stood in her eyes as she concluded. 

“ They are going soon,” suggested Cousin Copeland, hesi- 
tatingly, biting the end of his quill. 

“ That is the very reason. They are going soon, and we 
have done nothing to acknowledge their aid, their courtesy — 
we Gardistons, both of us. They have saved our home, per- 
haps our lives ; and we— we let them go without a word ! 
O cousin, it must not be. Something we must do ; noblesse 


OLD GARDISTON. 


19 


oblige / I have thought and thought, and really there is no- 
thing but this : we must invite them to dinner,” said Miss 
Duke, tragically. 

“ I— I always liked little dinners,” said Cousin Copeland, 
in a gentle, assenting murmur. 

Thus it happened that the officers received two formal 
little notes with the compliments of Miss Gardiston Duke in- 
closed, and an invitation to dinner. “ Hurrah ! ” cried Saxton. 
“ At last ! ” 

The day appointed was at the end of the next week; 
Gardis had decided that that would be more ceremonious. 
“ And they are to understand,” she said proudly, “ that it is 
a mere dinner of ceremony, and not of friendship.” 

“ Certainly,” said Cousin Copeland. 

Old Dinah was delighted. Gardis brought out some of 
the half-year rent money, and a dinner was planned, of few 
dishes truly, but each would be a marvel of good cooking, 
as the old family servants of the South used to cook when 
time was nothing to them. It is not much to them now ; but 
they have heard that it ought to be, and that troubles the per- 
fection of their pie-crust. Thpre was a little wine left in the 
wine-room — a queer little recess like a secret chamber ; and 
there was always the crocodile china and the few pieces of 
cut glass. The four forks would be enough, and Gardis 
would take no jelly, so that the spoons would serve also ; in 
fact, the dinner was planned to accommodate the silver. So 
far, so good. But now as to dress ; here the poor little mis- 
tress was sadly pinched. She knew this ; but she hoped to 
make use of a certain well-worn changeable silk that had be- 
longed to Miss Margaretta, in hue a dull green and purple. 
But, alas ! upon inspection she discovered that the faithful 
garment had given way at last, after years of patient service, 
and now there was nothing left but mildew and shreds. The 
invitation had been formally accepted ; the dinner was in course 
of preparation : what should she do ? She had absolutely no- 
thing, poor child, save the two faded old lawns which she 


20 


OLD GARDISTON. 


wore ordinarily, and the one shabby woolen dress for cooler 
weather. “If they were anything but what they are,” she 
said to herself, after she had again and again turned over the 
contents of her three bureau drawers, “ I would wear my 
every-day dress without a moment’s thought or trouble. But 
I will not allow these men, belonging to the despot army of 
the North, these aliens forced upon us by a strong hand and 
a hard fate, to smile at the shabby attire of a Southern lady.” 

She crossed the hall to Miss Margaretta’s closed room : 
she would search every corner ; possibly there was something 
she did not at the moment recall. But, alas ! only too well 
did she know the contents of the closet and the chest of draw- 
ers, the chest of drawers and the closet ; had she not been 
familiar with every fold and hue from her earliest childhood ? 
Was there nothing else ? There was the cedar chamber, a 
little cedar cupboard in the wall, where Miss Margaretta kept 
several stately old satin bonnets, elaborate structures of a past 
age. Mechanically Gardis mounted the steps, and opened 
the little door half-way up the wall. The bonnets were there, 
and with them several packages ; these she took down and 
opened. Among various useless relics of finery appeared, at 
last, one whole dress ; narrow-skirted, short, with a scantily 
fashioned waist, it was still a complete robe of its kind, in 
color a delicate blue, the material clinging and soft like Can- 
ton crape. Folded with the dress were blue kid slippers and 
a silk belt with a broad buckle. The package bore a label 
with this inscription, “ The gown within belonged to my 
respected mother, Pamela Gardiston,” in the handwriting of 
Miss Margaretta ; and Gardis remembered that she had seen 
the blue skirt once, long ago, in her childhood. But Miss 
Margaretta allowed no prying, and her niece had been trained 
to ask permission always before entering her apartment, and 
to refraiA from touching anything, unless asked to do so while 
there. Now the poverty-stricken little hostess carried the 
relics carefully across to her own room, and, locking the door, 
attired herself, and anxiously surveyed the effect. The old- 


OLD GARDISTON. 


121 


fashioned gown left her shoulders and arms bare, the broad 
belt could not lengthen the short waist, and the skirt hardly 
covered her ankles. “ I can wear my old muslin cape, but 
my arms will have to show, and my feet too,” she thought, 
with nervous distress. The creased blue kid slippers were 
full of little holes and somewhat mildewed, but the girl 
mended them bravely ; she said to herself that she need only 
walk down to the dining-room and back ; and, besides, the 
rooms would not be brightly lighted. If she had had any- 
thing to work with, even so much as one yard of material, she 
would have made over the old gown ; but she had absolutely 
nothing, and so she determined to overcome her necessities 
by sheer force of will. 

“ How do I look, cousin ? ” she said, appearing at the 
study-door on the afternoon of the fatal day. See spoke ner- 
vously, and yet proudly, as though defying criticism. But 
Cousin Copeland had no thought of criticism. 

“ My child,” he said, with pleased surprise, “ you look 
charming. I am very glad you have a new gown, dear, very 
glad.” 

“ Men are all alike,” thought Gardis exultingly. “ The 
others will think it is new also.” 

Cousin Copeland possessed but one suit of clothes ; con- 
sequently he had not been able to honor the occasion by a 
change of costume ; but he wore a ruffled shirt and a flower 
in his buttonhole, and his countenance was sedately illumined 
by the thought of the festal board below. He was not at 
work, but merely dabbling a little on the outer edges — mak- 
ing flourishes at the ends of the chapters, numbering pages, 
and so forth. Gardis had gone to the drawing-room ; she 
longed to see herself from head to foot, but, with the excep- 
tion of the glasses in two old pier-tables, there was no large 
mirror save the gauze-veiled one in the drawing-room. 
Should she do it ? Eve listened to the tempter, and fell. 
Likewise Gardis. A scissors, a chair, a snip, and lo ! it was 
done. There she was, a little figure in a quaint blue gown, 
6 


122 


OLD GARDISTON. 


the thick muslin cape hiding the neck, but the dimpled arms 
bare almost to the shoulder, since the sleeve was but a narrow 
puff ; the brown hair of this little image was braided around 
the head like a coronet ; the wistful face was colorless and 
sad ; in truth, there seemed to be tears in the brown eyes. 
“ I will not cry,” said Gardis, jumping down from her chair, 
“ but I do look odd ; there is no doubt of that.” Then she 
remembered that she should not have jumped, on account of 
the slippers, and looked anxiously down ; but the kid still 
held its place over the little feet, and, going to the piano, the 
young mistress of the manor began playing a gay little love- 
song, as if to defy her own sadness. Before it was finished, 
old Pompey, his every-day attire made majestic by a large, 
stiffly starched collar, announced the guests, and the solem- 
nities began. 

Everything moved smoothly, however. Cousin Copeland's 
conversation was in its most flowing vein, the simple little 
dinner was well cooked and served, Pompey was statuesque, 
and the two guests agreeable. They remained at the table 
some time, according to the old Gardiston custom, and then, 
the ends of wax-candles having been lighted in the drawing- 
room, coffee was served there in the crocodile cups, and Miss 
Duke sang one or two songs. Soon after the officers took 
leave. Captain Newell bowed as he said farewell, but Roger 
Saxton, younger and more impulsive, extended his hand. 
Miss Duke made a stately courtesy, with downcast eyes, as 
though she had not observed it ; but by her heightened color 
the elder guest suspected the truth, and smiled inwardly at 
the proud little reservation. “Th t hand of Douglas is his 
own,” he said to himself. 

The dreaded dinner was over, and the girl had judged 
correctly : the two visitors had no suspicion of the antiquity 
of the blue gown. 

“ Did you ever see such a sweet little picture, from the 
pink rose in the hair down to the blue slipper ! ” said Saxton 
enthusiastically. 


OLD GARDISTON. 


123 


“ She looked well,” replied Newell ; “ but as for cordiality — ” 

“ I’ll win that yet. I like her all the better for her little 
ways,” said the lieutenant. “ I suppose it is only natural that 
Southern girls should cherish bitterness against us ; although, 
of course, she is far too young to have lost a lover in the war 
— far too young.” 

“ Which is a comfort,” said Newell dryly. 

“ A great comfort, old man. Don’t he bearish, now, but 
just wait a while and see.” 

u Precisely what I intend to do,” said Newell. 

In the mean time Gardis, in the privacy of her own room, 
was making a solemn funeral pyre on the hearth, composed 
of the blue gown, the slippers, and the pink rose, and watch- 
ing the flame as it did its work. “ So perish also the enemies 
of my country ! ” she said to herself. (She did not mean ex- 
actly that they should be burned on funeral pyres, but merely 
consigned them on this, as on all occasions, to a general per- 
dition.) The old dress was but a rag, and the slippers were 
worthless ; but, had they been new and costly, she would have 
done the same. Had they not been desecrated ? Let them 
die ! 

It was, of course, proper that the guests should call at 
Gardiston House within a day or two ; and Roger Saxton, ig- 
noring the coldness of his reception, came again and again. 
He even sought out Cousin Copeland in his study, and won 
the heart of the old bachelor by listening a whole morning to 
extracts from the documents. Gardis found that her reserve 
was of no avail against this bold young soloier, who followed 
her into all her little retreats, and paid no attention to her 
stinging little speeches. Emboldened and also> ; angered by 
what she deemed his callousness, she every day grew more 
and more open in her tone, until you might have said that 
she, as a unit, poured out upon his head the whole bitterness 
of the South. Saxton made no answer until the time came 
for the camp to break up, the soldiers being ordered back to 
the city. Then he came to see her one afternoon, and sat for 

4 


124 


OLD GARDISTON. 


some time in silence ; the conversation of the little mistress 
was the same as usual. 

“ I forgive this, and all the bitter things you have said to 
me, Gardis,” he remarked abruptly. 

“ Forgive ! And by what right, sir — ” 

“ Only this : I love you, dear.” And then he poured out 
all the tide of his young ardor, and laid his heart and his 
life at her feet. 

But the young girl, drawing her slight figure up to its full 
height, dismissed him with haughty composure. She no 
longer spoke angrily, but simply said, “ That you, a Northern- 
er and a soldier, should presume to ask for the hand of a 
Southern lady, shows, sir, that you have not the least com- 
prehension of us or of our country.” Then she made him a 
courtesy and left the room. The transformation was com- 
plete ; it was no longer the hot-tempered girl flashing out in 
biting little speeches, but the woman uttering the belief of 
her life. Saxton rode off into town that same night, dejected 
and forlorn. 

Captain Newell took his leave a day later in a different 
fashion ; he told Miss Duke that he would leave a guard on 
the premises if she wished it. 

“ I do not think it will be necessary,” answered the lady. 

** Nor do I ; indeed, I feel sure that there will be no fur- 
ther trouble, for we have placed the whole district under mili- 
tary rule since the last disturbance. But I thought possibly 
you might feel timid.” 

“ I am not timid, Captain Newell.” 

The grave captain stroked his mustache to conceal a 
smile, and then, as he rose to go, he said : “ Miss Duke, I 
wish to say to you one thing. You know nothing of us, of 
course, but I trust you will accept my word when I say 
that Mr. Saxton is of good family, that he is well educated, 
and that he is heir to a fair fortune. What he is personally 
you have seen for yourself — a frank, kind-hearted, manly 
young fellow.” 


OLD GARDISTON. 


125 


“ Did you come here to plead his cause ? ” said the girl 
scornfully. 

“ No ; I came here to offer you a guard, Miss Duke, for 
the protection of your property. But at the same time I 
thought it only my duty to make you aware of the real value 
of the gift laid at your feet.” 

“ How did you know — ” began Gardis. 

“ Roger tells me everything,” replied the officer. “ If it 
were not so, I — ” Here he paused ; and then, as though he 
had concluded to say no more, he bowed and took leave. 

That night Gardiston House was left to itself in the forest 
stillness. “ I am glad that bugle is silenced for ever,” said 
Gardis. 

“ And yet it was a silvern sound,” said Cousin Copeland. 

The rains began, and there was no more walking abroad ; 
the excitement of the summer and the camp gone, in its place 
came the old cares which had been half forgotten. (Care 
always waits for a cold or a rainy day.) Could the little house- 
hold manage to live — live with their meager comforts — until 
the next payment of rent came in ? That was the question. 

Bitterly, bitterly poor was the whole Southern country in 
those dreary days after the war. The second year was worse 
than the first ; for the hopes that had buoyed up the broken 
fortunes soon disappeared, and nothing was left. There was 
no one to help Gardis Duke, or the hundreds of other women in 
like desolate positions. Some of the furniture and ornaments 
of the old house might have been sold, could they have been 
properly brought forward in New York City, where there were 
people with purses to buy such things ; but in the South no 
one wanted Chinese images, and there was nothing of intrinsic 
value. So the little household lived along, in a spare, pinched 
way, until, suddenly, final disaster overtook them : the tenant 
of the warehouse gave up his lease, declaring that the old 
building was too ruinous for use ; and, as no one succeeded 
him, Gardiston House beheld itself face to face with starvation. 

“ If we wasn’t so old, Pomp and me, Miss Gardis, we could 


126 


OLD GARDISTON. 


work for yer,” said Dinah, with great tears rolling down her 
wrinkled cheeks ; “ but we’s just good for not’ing now.” 

Cousin Copeland left his manuscripts and wandered aim- 
lessly around the garden for a day or two ; then the little man 
rose early one morning and walked into the city, with the 
hopeful idea of obtaining employment as a clerk. “ My hand- 
writing is more than ordinarily ornate, I think,” he said to 
himself, with proud confidence. 

Reaching the town at last, he walked past the stores sev- 
eral times and looked timidly within ; he thought perhaps 
some one would see him, and come out. But no one came ; 
and at last he ventured into a clothing-store, through a grove 
of ticketed coats and suspended trousers. The proprietor of 
the establishment, a Northern Hebrew whose venture had not 
paid very well, heard his modest request, and asked what he 
could do. 

“ I can write,” said Cousin Copeland, with quiet pride ; 
and in answer to a sign he climbed up on a tall stool and pro- 
ceeded to cover half a sheet of paper in his best style. As he 
could not for the moment think of anything else, he wrote 
out several paragraphs from the last family document. 

“ Richard, the fourth of the name, a descendant on the 
maternal side from the most respected and valorous family — ” 

“ Oh, we don’t care for that kind of writing ; it’s old-fash- 
ioned,” said Mr. Ottenheimer, throwing down the paper, and 
waving the applicant toward the door with his fat hand. “ I 
don’t want my books frescoed.” 

Cousin Copeland retired to the streets again with a new 
sensation in his heart. Old-fashioned ? Was it old-fash- 
ioned ? And even if so, was it any the less a rarely attained 
and delicately ornate style of writing ? He could not under- 
stand it. Weary with the unaccustomed exercise, he sat 
down at last on the steps of a church — an old structure whose 
spire bore the marks of bomb-shells sent in from the block- 
ading fleet outside the bar during those months of dreary 
siege — and thought he would refresh himself with some fur- 


9 


OLD GARDISTON. 


127 

tive mouthfuls of the corn-bread hidden in his pocket for 
lunch. 

“ Good morning, sir,” said a voice, just as he had drawn 
forth his little parcel and was opening it behind the skirt of 
his coat. “ When did you come in from Gardiston ? ” 

It was Captain Newell. With the rare courtesy which 
comes from a kind heart, he asked no questions regarding the 
fatigue and the dust-powdered clothes of the little bachelor, 
and took a seat beside him as though a church-step on a city 
street was a customary place of meeting. 

“ I was about to — to eat a portion of this corn-bread,” 
said Cousin Copeland, hesitatingly; “ will you taste it also ? ” 

The young officer accepted a share of the repast gravely, 
and then Cousin Copeland told his story. He was a simple 
soul. Miss Margaretta would have made the soldier believe 
she had come to town merely for her own lofty amusement or 
to buy jewels. It ended, however, in the comfortable eating 
of a good dinner at the hotel, and a cigar in Captain Newell’s 
own room, which was adorned with various personal appli- 
ances for comfort that astonished the eyes of the careful little 
bachelor, and left him in a maze of vague wonderings. Young 
men lived in that way, then, nowadays ? They could do so, 
and yet not be persons of— of irregular habits ? 

David Newell persuaded his guest to abandon, for the 
present, all idea of obtaining employment in the city. “ These 
shopkeepers are not capable of appreciating qualifications 
such as yours, sir,” he said. “Would it not be better to set 
about obtaining a new tenant for the warehouse ? ” 

Cousin Copeland thought it would ; but repairs were 
needed, and — 

“ Will you give me the charge of it ? I am in the city all 
the time, and I have acquaintances among the Northerners 
who are beginning to come down here with a view of engag- 
ing in business.” 

Cousin Copeland gladly relinquished the warehouse, and 
then, after an hour’s rest, he rode gallantly back to Gardiston 


128 


OLD GARDISTON. 


House on one of the captain’s horses ; he explained at some 
length that he had been quite a man of mettle in his youth as 
regards horse-flesh — “ often riding, sir, ten and fifteen miles a 
day.” 

“ I will go in for a moment, I think,” said the young offi- 
cer, as they arrived at the old gate. 

“ Most certainly,” said Cousin Copeland cordially ; “ Gar- 
dis will be delighted to see you.” 

“ Will she ? ” said the captain. 

Clouds had gathered, a raw wind from the ocean swept 
over the land, and fine rain was beginning to fall. The house 
seemed dark and damp as the two entered it. Gardis listened 
to Cousin Copeland’s detailed little narrative in silence, and 
made no comments while he was present ; but when he left 
the room for a moment she said abruptly : 

“ Sir, you will make no repairs, and you will take no steps 
toward procuring a tenant for our property in the city. I will 
not allow it.” 

“ And why may I not do it as well as any other person ? ” 
said Captain Newell. 

“You are not ‘ any other person,’ and you know it,” said 
Gardis, with flushed cheeks. “ I do not choose to receive a 
favor from your hands.” 

“ It is a mere business transaction, Miss Duke.” 

“ It is not. You know you intend to make the repairs 
yourself,” cried the girl passionately. 

“ And if I do so intend ? It will only be advancing the 
money, and you can pay me interest if you like. The city 
will certainly regain her old position in time ; my venture is a 
sure one. But I wish to assist you, Miss Duke ; I do not 
deny it.” 

“ And I — will not allow it ! ” 

“ What will you do, then ? ” 

“ God knows,” said Gardis. “ But I would rather starve 
than accept assistance from you.” Her eyes were full of tears 
as she spoke, but she held her head proudly erect. 


OLD GARDISTON. 


129 

" And from Saxton ? He has gone North, but he would 
be so proud to help you.” 

“ From him least of all.” 

“ Because of his love for you ? ” 

Gardis was silent. 

“Miss Duke, let me ask you one question. If you had 
loved Roger Saxton, would you have married him ? ” 

“ Never ! ” 

“You would have sacrificed your whole life, then, for the 
sake of — ” 

“ My country, sir.” 

“We have a common country, Gardis,” answered the young 
man gravely. Then, as he rose, “ Child,” he said, “ I shall 
not relinquish the charge of your property, given into my 
hands by Mr. Copeland Gardiston, and, for your own sake, I 
beg you to be more patient, more gentle, as becomes a wo- 
man. A few weeks will no doubt see you released from even 
your slight obligation to me : you will have but a short time 
to wait.” 

Poor Gardis ! Her proud scorn went for nothing, then ? 
She was overridden as though she had been a child, and even 
rebuked for want of gentleness. The drawing-room was 
cheerless and damp in the rainy twilight; the girl wore a 
faded lawn dress, and her cheeks were pale ; the old house 
was chilly through and through, and even the soldier, strong 
as he was, felt himself shivering. At this instant enter Cousin 
Copeland. “ Of course you will spend the night here,” he 
said heartily. “ It is raining, and I must insist upon your 
staying over until to-morrow — must really insist.” 

Gardis looked up quickly ; her dismayed face said plainly, 
“ Oh no, no.” Thereupon the young officer immediately ac- 
cepted Cousin Copeland’s invitation, and took his seat again 
with quiet deliberation. Gardis sank down upon the sofa. 
“ Very well,” she thought desperately, “ this time it is hope- 
less. Nothing can be done.” 

And hopeless it was. Pompey brought in a candle, and 


130 


OLD GARDISTON. 


placed it upon the table, where its dim light made the large 
apartment more dismal than before ; the rain poured down 
outside, and the rising wind rattled the loose shutters. Din- 
ner was announced — one small fish, potatoes, and corn-bread. 
Pale Gardis sat like a statue at the head of the table, and 
made no effort to entertain the guest ; but Cousin Copeland 
threw himself bravely into the breach, and, by way of diver- 
sion, related the whole story of the unchronicled “ wife of one 
of our grandfather’s second cousins,” who had turned out to 
be a most remarkable personage of Welsh descent, her golden 
harp having once stood in the very room in which they were 
now seated. 

“ Do you not think, my child, that a — a little fire in your 
aunt Margaretta’s boudoir would — would be conducive to our 
comfort?” suggested the little bachelor, as they rose from 
the table. 

“ As you please,” said Gardis. 

So the three repaired thither, and when the old red cur- 
tains were drawn, and the fire lighted, the little room had at 
least a semblance of comfort, whatever may have been in the 
hearts of its occupants. Gardis embroidered, Cousin Cope- 
land chatted on in a steady little stream, and the guest lis- 
tened. “ I will step up stairs to my study, and brin£ down 
that file of documents,” said the bachelor, rising. He was v 
gone, and left only silence behind him. Gardis did not raise ' 
her head, but went steadily on with the embroidered robe of 
the Queen of Sheba. 

“ I am thinking,” began David Newell, breaking the long 
pause at last, “ how comfortable you would be. Miss Duke, as 
the wife of Roger Saxton. He would take you North, away 
from this old house, and he would be so proud and so fond 
of you.” 

No answer. 

“ The place could be put in order if you did not care to 
sell it, and your cousin Copeland could live on here as usual ; 
indeed, I could scarcely imagine him in any other home.” 


OLD GARDISTON. 


* 3 * 


“ Nor myself.” 

“ Oh yes, Miss Duke ; I can easily imagine you in New 
York, Paris, or Vienna. I can easily imagine you at the opera, 
in the picture-galleries, or carrying out to the full your exqui- 
site taste in dress.” 

Down went the embroidery. “ Sir, do you mean to insult 
me?” said the pale, cotton-robed little hostess. 

“ By no means.” 

“ Why do you come here ? Why do you sneer at my poor 
clothes ? Why — ” Her voice trembled, and she stopped 
abruptly. 

“ I was not aware that they were poor or old, Miss Duke. 
I have never seen a more exquisite costume than yours on the 
evening when we dined here by invitation ; it has been like a 
picture in my memory ever since.” 

“ An old robe that belonged to my grandmother, and I 
burned it, every shred, as soon as you had gone,” said Gardis 
hotly. 

Far from being impressed as she had intended he should 
be, David Newell merely bowed ; the girl saw that he set the 
act down as “ temper.” 

“ I suppose your Northern ladies never do such things ? ” 
she said bitterly. 

“ You are right ; they do not,” he answered. 

• “ Why do you come here ? ” pursued Gardis. “ Why do 

you speak to me of Mr. Saxton ? Though he had the fortune 
of a prince, he is nothing to me.” 

“ Roger’s fortune is comfortable, but not princely, Miss 
Duke — by no means princely. We are not princely at the 
North,” added Newell, with a slight smile, “ and neither are 
we ‘knightly.’ We must, I fear, yield all claim to those 
prized words of yours.” 

“ I am not aware that I have used the words,” said Miss 
Duke, with lofty indifference. 

“ Oh, I did not mean you alone— you personally— but all 
Southern women. However, to return to our subject : 


1 3 2 


OLD gardis ton.' 


Saxton loves you, and has gone away with a saddened 
heart.” 

This was said gravely. “As though,” Miss Duke re- 
marked to herself — “ really as though a heart was of conse- 
quence ! ” 

“ I presume he will soon forget,” she said carelessly, as 
she took up her embroidery again. 

“ Yes, no doubt,” replied Captain Newell. “ I remember 
once on Staten Island, and again out in Mississippi, when he 
was even more — Yes, as you say, he will soon forget.” 

“ Then why do you so continually speak of him ? ” said 
Miss Duke sharply. Such prompt corroboration was not, 
after all, as agreeable as it should have been to a well-regu- 
lated mind. 

“ I speak of him, Miss Duke, because I wish to know 
whether it is only your Southern girlish pride that speaks, or 
whether you really, as would be most natural, love him as he 
loves you ; for, in the latter case, you would be able, I think, 
to fix and retain his somewhat fickle fancy. He is a fine 
fellow, and, as I said before, it would be but natural, Miss 
Duke, that you should love him.” 

“ I do not love him,” said Gardis, quickly and angrily, put- 
ting in her stitches all wrong. Who was this person, daring 
to assume what would or would not be natural for her to do ? 

“Very well; I believe you. And now that I know the 
truth, I will tell you why I come here : you have asked me 
several times. I too love you, Miss Duke.” 

Gardis had risen. “ You ? ” she said — “ you ? ” 

“ Yes, I ; I too.” 

He was standing also, and they gazed at each other a 
moment in silence. 

“ I will never marry you,” said the girl at last — “ never ! 
never ! You do not, can not, understand the hearts of South- 
ern women, sir.” 

“ I have not asked you to marry me, Miss Duke,” said the 
young soldier composedly ; “ and the hearts of Southern wo- 


OLD GADDIS TON. 


33 


men are much like those of other women, I presume.” Then, 
as the girl opened the door to escape, “ You may go away 
if you like, Gardis,” he said, “but I shall love you all the 
same, dear.” 

She disappeared, and in a few moments Cousin Copeland 
reentered, with apologies for his lengthened absence. “ I 
found several other documents I thought you might like to 
see,” he said eagerly. “ They will occupy the remainder of 
our evening delightfully.” 

They did. But Gardis did not return ; neither did she ap- 
pear at the breakfast-table the next morning. Captain Newell 
rode back to the city without seeing her. 

Not long afterward Cousin Copeland received a formal 
letter from a city lawyer. The warehouse had found a tenant, 
and he, the lawyer, acting for the agent, Captain Newell, had 
the honor to inclose the first installment of rent-money, and 
remained an obedient servant, and so forth. Cousin Cope- 
land was exultant. Gardis said to herself, “He is taking 
advantage of our poverty,” and, going to her room, she sat 
down to plan some way of release. “ I might be a governess,” 
she thought. But no one at the South wanted a governess 
now, and how could she go North ? She was not aware how 
old-fashioned were her little accomplishments — her music, her 
embroidery, her ideas of literature, her prim drawings, and 
even her deportment. No one made courtesies at the North 
any more, save perhaps in the Lancers. As to chemistry, 
trigonometry, physiology, and geology, the ordinary studies 
of a Northern girl, she knew hardly more than their names. 
“ We might sell the place,” she thought at last, “ and go away 
somewhere and live in the woods.” 

This, indeed, seemed the only way open to her. The 
house was an actual fact ; it was there ; it was also her own. 
A few days later an advertisement appeared in the city news- 
paper: “For sale, the residence known as Gardiston House, 
situated six miles from the city, on Green River. Apply by 
letter, or on the premises, to Miss Gardiston Duke.” Three 


34 


OLD GARDISTON. 


days passed, and no one came. The fourth day an applicant 
appeared, and was ushered into the dining-room. He sent 
up no name ; but Miss Duke descended hopefully to confer 
with him, and found — Captain Newell. 

“You!” she said, paling and flushing. Her voice fal- 
tered ; she was sorely disappointed. 

“ It will always be myself, Gardis,” said the young man 
gravely. “ So you wish to sell the old house ? I should not 
have supposed it.” 

“ I wish to sell it in order to be freed from obligations 
forced upon us, sir.” 

“ Very well. But if / buy it, then what ? ” 

“You will not buy it, for the simple reason that I will not 
sell it to you. You do not wish the place; you would only 
buy it to assist us.” 

“ Thai is true.” 

“Then there is nothing more to be said, I believe,” said 
Miss Duke, rising. 

“ Is there nothing more, Gardis ? ” 

“ Nothing, Captain Newell.” 

And then, without another word, the soldier bowed, and 
rode back to town. 

The dreary little advertisement remained in a corner of 
the newspaper a month longer, but no purchaser appeared. 
The winter was rainy, with raw east winds from the ocean, 
and the old house leaked in many places. If they had lived 
in one or two of the smaller rooms, which were in better con- 
dition and warmer than the large apartments, they might have 
escaped ; but no habit was changed, and three times a day 
the table was spread in the damp dining-room, where the 
atmosphere was like that of a tomb, and where no fire was 
ever made. The long evenings were spent in the somber 
drawing-room by the light of the one candle, and the rain 
beat against the old shutters so loudly that Cousin Copeland 
was obliged to elevate his gentle little voice as he read aloud 
to his silent companion. But one evening he found himself 


OLD GARDISTON. 


35 


forced to pause; his voice had failed. Four days afterward 
he died, gentle and placid to the last. He was an old man, 
although no one had ever thought so. 

The funeral notice appeared in the city paper, and a few 
old family friends came out to Gardiston House to follow the 
last Gardiston to his resting-place in St. Mark’s forest church- 
yard. They were all sad-faced people, clad in mourning 
much the worse for wear. Accustomed to sorrow, they fol- 
lowed to the grave quietly, not a heart there that had not its 
own dead. They all returned to Gardiston House, sat a 
while in the drawing-room, spoke a few words each in turn 
to the desolate little mistress, and then took leave. Gardis 
was left alone. 

Captain Newell did not come to the funeral; he could 
not come into such a company in his uniform, and he would 
not come without it. He had his own ideas of duty, and his 
own pride. But he sent a wreath of beautiful flowers, which 
must have come from some city where there was a hot-house. 
Miss Duke would not place the wreath upon the coffin, neither 
would she leave it in the drawing-room ; she stood a while 
with it in her hand, and then she stole up stairs and laid it on 
Cousin Copeland’s open desk, where daily he had worked so 
patiently and steadily through so many long years. Useless- 
ly ? Who among us shall dare to say that ? 

A week later, at twilight, old Dinah brought up the young 
officer’s card. 

“ Say that I see no one,” replied Miss Duke. 

A little note came back, written on a slip of paper ; “ I 
beg you to see me, if only for a moment ; it is a business mat- 
ter that has brought me here to-day.” And certainly it was 
a very forlorn day for a pleasure ride : the wind howled 
through the trees, and the roads were almost impassable with 
deep mire. Miss Duke went down to the dining-room. She 
wore no mourning garments; she had none. She had not 
worn mourning for her aunt, and for the same reason. Pale 
and silent, she stood before the young officer waiting to hear 


OLD GARDISTON. 


136 

his errand. It was this : some one wished to purchase Gar- 
diston House — a real purchaser this time, a stranger. Cap- 
tain Newell did not say that it was the wife of an army con- 
tractor, a Northern woman, who had taken a fancy for an old 
family residence, and intended to be herself an old family in 
future ; he merely stated the price offered for the house and 
its furniture, and in a few words placed the business clearly 
before the listener. 

Her face lighted with pleasure. 

“ At last ! ” she said. 

“ Yes, at last, Miss Duke.” There was a shade of sad- 
ness in his tone, but he spoke no word of entreaty. “ You 
accept ? ” 

“ I do,” said Gardis. 

“ I must ride back to the city,” said David Newell, taking 
up his cap, “ before it is entirely dark, for the roads are very 
heavy. I came out as soon as I heard of the offer, Miss 
Duke, for I knew you would be glad, very glad.” 

“ Yes,” said Gardis, “ I am glad ; very glad.” Her cheeks 
were flushed now, and she smiled as she returned the young 
officer’s bow. “ Some time, Captain Newell — some time I 
trust I shall feel like thanking you for what was undoubtedly 
intended, on your part, as kindness,” she said. 

“ It was never intended for kindness at all,” said Newell 
bluntly. “ It was never but one thing, Gardis, and you know 
it ; and that one thing is, and always will be, love. Not ‘ al- 
ways will be,’ though ; I should not say that. A man can 
conquer an unworthy love if he chooses.” 

“ Unworthy ? ” said Gardis involuntarily. 

“Yes, unworthy; like this of mine for you. A woman 
should be gentle, should be loving ; a woman should have a 
womanly nature. But you — you — you do not seem to have 
anything in you but a foolish pride. I verily believe, Gardis 
Duke, that, if you loved me enough to die for me, you would 
still let me go out of that door without a word, so deep, so 
deadly is that pride of yours. What do I want with such a 


OLD GARDISTON. 


1 37 

wife ? No. My wife must love me— love me ardently, as I 
shall love her. Farewell, Miss Duke ; I shall not see you 
again, probably. I will send a lawyer out to complete the 
sale.” 

He was gone, and Gardis stood alone in the darkening 
room. Gardiston House, where she had spent her life— Gar- 
diston House, full of the memories and associations of two 
centuries — Gardiston House, the living reminder and the con- 
stant support of that family pride in which she had been nur- 
tured, her one possession in the land which she had so loved, 
the beautiful, desolate South— would soon be hers no longer. 
She began to sob, and then when the sound came back to 
her, echoing through the still room, she stopped suddenly, as 
though ashamed. “ I will go abroad,” she said ; “ there will 
be a great deal to amuse me over there.” But the comfort 
was dreary ; and, as if she must do something, she took a 
candle, and slowly visited every room in the old mansion, 
many of them long unused. From garret to cellar she went, 
touching every piece of the antique furniture, folding back 
the old curtains, standing by the dismantled beds, and softly 
pausing by the empty chairs ; she was saying farewell. On 
Cousin Copeland’s desk the wreath still lay ; in that room she 
cried from sheer desolation. Then, going down to the dining- 
room, she found her solitary repast awaiting her, and, not to 
distress old Dinah, sat down in her accustomed place. Pres- 
ently she perceived smoke, then a sound, then a hiss and a 
roar. She flew up stairs ; the house was on fire. Somewhere 
her candle must have started the flame ; she remembered the 
loose papers in Cousin Copeland’s study, and the wind blow- 
ing through the broken window-pane ; it was there that she 
had cried so bitterly, forgetting everything save her own lone- 
liness. 

Nothing could be done ; there was no house within sev- 
eral miles— no one to help. The old servants were infirm, 
and the fire had obtained strong headway; then the high 
wind rushed in, and sent the flames up through the roof and 


■» 3 « 


OLD GA RDIS TON. 


over the tops of the trees. When the whole upper story was 
one sheet of red and yellow, some one rode furiously up the 
road and into the garden, where Gardis stood alone, her little 
figure illunpned by the glare ; nearer the house the two old 
servants were at work, trying to save some of the furniture 
from the lower rooms. 

“ I saw the light and hurried back, Miss Duke,” began 
Captain Newell. Then, as he saw the wan desolation of the 
girl's face: “ O Gardis ! why will you resist me longer ? ” he 
cried passionately. “You shall be anything you like, think 
anything you like — only love me, dear, as I love you.” 

And Gardis burst into tears. “ I can not help it,” she 
sobbed ; “ everything is against me. The very house is burn- 
ing before my eyes. O David, David ! it is all wrong ; every- 
thing is wrong. But what can I do when — when you hold 
me so, and when — Oh, do not ask me any more.” 

“ But I shall,” said Newell, his face flushing with deep 
happiness. “ When what, dear ? ” 

“When I—” 

“ Love me ? ” said Newell. He would have it spoken. 

“ Yes,” whispered Gardis, hanging her head. 

“ And I have adored the very shoe-tie of my proud little 
love ever since I first saw her sweet face at the drawing-room 
window,” said Newell, holding her close and closer, and gaz- 
ing down into her eyes with the deep gaze of the quiet heart 
that loves but once. 

And the old house burned on, burned as though it knew a 
contractor’s wife was waiting for it. “ I see our Gardis is 
provided for,” said the old house. “ She never was a real 
Gardiston — only a Duke ; so it is just as well. As for that 
contractor’s wife, she shall have nothing; not a Chinese 
image, not a spindle-legged chair, not one crocodile cup — no, 
not even one stone upon another.” 

It kept its word : in the morning there was nothing left. 
Old Gardiston was gone ! 


THE SOUTH DEVIL, 


The trees that lean’d in their love unto trees, 

That lock’d in their loves, and were made so strong, 
Stronger than armies ; ay, stronger than seas 
That rush from their caves in a storm of song. 

The cockatoo swung in the vines below, 

And muttering hung on a golden thread, 

Or moved on the moss’d bough to and fro, 

In plumes of gold and array’d in red. 

The serpent that hung from the sycamore bough, 

And sway’d his head in a crescent above, 

Had folded his head to the white limb now, 

And fondled it close like a great black love. 

Joaquin Milleb. 


On the afternoon of the 23d of December, the thermome- 
ter marked eighty-six degrees in the shade on the outside 
wall of Mark Deal’s house. Mark Deal’s brother, lying on 
the white sand, his head within the line of shadow cast by a 
live-oak, but all the remainder of his body full in the hot sun- 
shine, basked liked a chameleon, and enjoyed the heat. Mark 
Deal’s brother spent much of his time basking. He always 
took the live-oak for a head-protector ; but gave himself vari- 
ety by trying new radiations around the tree, his crossed legs 
and feet stretching from it in a slightly different direction each 
day, as the spokes of a wheel radiate from the hub. The 
live-oak was a symmetrical old tree, standing by itself ; hav- 
ing always had sufficient space, its great arms were straight, 
stretching out evenly all around, densely covered with the 
small, dark, leathery leaves, unnotched and uncut, which are 
as unlike the Northern oak-leaf as the leaf of the willow is 


140 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


unlike that of the sycamore. Behind the live-oak, two tall, 
ruined chimneys and a heap of white stones marked where 
the mansion-house had been. The old tree had watched its 
foundations laid ; had shaded its blank, white front and little 
hanging balcony above ; had witnessed its destruction, fifty 
years before, by the Indians ; and had mounted guard over 
its remains ever since, alone as far as man was concerned, 
until this year, when a tenant had arrived, Mark Deal, and, 
somewhat later, Mark Deal’s brother. 

The ancient tree was Spanish to the core ; it would have 
resented the sacrilege to the tips of its small acorns, if the 
new-comer had laid hands upon the dignified old ruin it 
guarded. The new-comer, however, entertained no such in- 
tention ; a small out-building, roofless, but otherwise in good 
condition, on the opposite side of the circular space, attracted 
his attention, and became mentally his residence, as soon as 
his eyes fell upon it, he meanwhile standing with his hands in 
his pockets, surveying the place critically. It was the old 
Monteano plantation, and he had taken it for a year. 

The venerable little out-building was now firmly roofed 
with new, green boards ; its square windows, destitute of 
sash or glass, possessed new wooden shutters hung by strips 
of deer’s hide ; new steps led up to its two rooms, elevated 
four feet above the ground. But for a door it had only a red 
cotton curtain, now drawn forward and thrown carelessly over 
a peg on the outside wall, a spot of vivid color on its white. 
Underneath the windows hung flimsy strips of bark covered 
with brightly-hued flowers. 

“ They won’t live,” said Mark Deal; 

“ Oh, I shall put in fresh ones every day or two,” an- 
swered his brother. It was he who had wanted the red 
curtain. 

As he basked, motionless, in the sunshine, it could be 
noted that this brother was a slender youth, with long, pale- 
yellow hair — hair fine, thin, and dry, the kind that crackles if 
the comb is passed rapidly through it. His face in sleep was 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


H 1 


pale and wizened, with deep purple shadows under the closed 
eyes ; his long hands were stretched out on the white, hot 
sand in the blaze of the sunshine, which, however, could not 
alter their look of blue-white cold. The sunken chest and 
blanched temples told of illness ; but, if cure were possible, it 
would be gained from this soft, balmy, fragrant air, now 
soothing his sore lungs. He slept on in peace ; and an old 
green chameleon came down from the tree, climbed up on the 
sleeve of his brown sack-coat, occupied himself for a moment 
in changing his own miniature hide to match the cloth, swelled 
out his scarlet throat, caught a fly or two, and then, pleasant- 
ly established, went to sleep also in company. Butterflies, in 
troops of twenty or thirty, danced in the golden air; there 
was no sound. Everything was hot and soft and brightly 
colored. Winter ? Who knew of winter here ? Labor ? 
What was labor ? This was the land and the sky and the 
air of never-ending rest. 

Yet one man was working there, and working hard, name- 
ly, Mark Deal. His little central plaza, embracing perhaps 
an acre, was surrounded when he first arrived by a wall of 
green, twenty feet high. The sweet orange-trees, crape-myr- 
tles, oleanders, guavas, and limes planted by the Spaniards 
had been, during the fifty years, conquered and partially en- 
slaved by a wilder growth — andromedas, dahoons, bayberries, 
and the old field loblollies, the whole bound together by the 
tangled vines of the jessamine and armed smilax, with bear- 
grass and the dwarf palmetto below. Climbing the central 
live-oak, Deal had found, as he expected, traces of the six 
paths which had once led from this little plaza to the various 
fields and the sugar plantation, their course still marked by 
the tops of the bitter-sweet orange-trees, which showed them- 
selves glossily, in regular lines, amid the duller foliage around 
them. He took their bearings and cut them out slowly, one 
by one. Now the low-arched aisles, eighty feet in length, 
were clear, with the thick leaves interlacing overhead, and 
the daylight shining through at their far ends, golden against 


4 * 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


the green. Here, where the north path terminated, Deal was 
now working. 

He was a man slightly below middle height, broad-shoul- 
dered, and muscular, with the outlines which are galled thick- 
set. He appeared forty-five, and was not quite thirty-five. 
Although weather-beaten and bronzed, there was yet a 
pinched look in his face, which was peculiar. He was work- 
ing in an old field, preparing it for sweet potatoes — those om- 
nipresent, monotonous vegetables of Florida which will grow 
anywhere, and which at last, with their ugly, gray-mottled 
skins, are regarded with absolute aversion by the Northern 
visitor. 

The furrows of half a century before were still visible in 
the field. No frost had disturbed the winterless earth ; no 
atom had changed its place, save where the gopher had bur- 
rowed beneath, or the snake left its waving trail above in 
the sand which constitutes the strange, white, desolate soil, 
wherever there is what may be called by comparison solid 
ground, in the lake-dotted, sieve-like land. There are many 
such traces of former cultivation in Florida : we come sud- 
denly upon old tracks, furrows, and drains in what we thought 
‘primeval forest ; rose-bushes run wild, and distorted old fig- 
trees meet us in a jungle where we supposed no white man’s 
foot had ever before penetrated ; the ruins of a chimney gleam 
whitely through a waste of thorny ckaparral. It is all nat- 
ural enough, if one stops to remember that fifty years before 
the first settlement was made in Virginia, and sixty-three 
before the Mayflower touched the shores of the New World, 
there were flourishing Spanish plantations on this Southern 
coast — more flourishing, apparently, than any the indolent 
peninsula has since known. But one does not stop to re- 
member it ; the belief is imbedded in all our Northern hearts 
that, because the narrow, sun-bathed State is far away and 
wild and empty, it is also new and virgin, like the lands of 
the West; whereas it is old — the only gray-haired corner our 
country holds. 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


H3 

Mark Deal worked hard. Perspiration beaded his fore- 
head and cheeks, and rolled from his short, thick, red-brown 
hair. He worked in this way every day from daylight until 
dusk, and was probably the only white man in the State who 
did. When his task was finished, he made a circuit around 
the belt of thicket through which the six paths ran to his 
orange-grove on the opposite side. On the way he skirted an 
edge of the sugar-plantation, now a wide, empty waste, with 
the old elevated causeway still running across it. On its far 
edge loomed the great cypresses of South Devil, a swamp 
forty miles long ; there was a sister, West Devil, not far away, 
equally beautiful, dark, and deadly. Beyond the sugar waste 
were the indigo-fields, still fenced by their old ditches. Then 
came the orange-grove ; luxuriant, shady word — the orange- 
grove ! 

It was a space of level white sand, sixty feet square, ferti- 
lized a century before with pounded oyster-shells, in the Span- 
ish fashion. Planted in even rows across it, tied to stakes, 
were slips of green stem, each with three leaves — forlorn little 
plants, five or six inches in height. But the stakes were new 
and square and strong, and rose to Deal’s shoulder ; they 
were excellent stakes, and made quite a grove of themselves, 
firm, if somewhat bare. 

Deal worked in his grove until sunset ; then he shouldered 
his tools and went homeward through one of the arched aisles 
to the little plaza within, where stood his two-roomed house 
with its red cotton door. His brother was still sleeping on 
the sand, at least, his eyes were closed. Deal put his tools in 
a rack behind the house, and then crossed to where he lay. 

“ You should not sleep here after sunset, Carl,” he said, 
somewhat roughly. “ You know better ; why do you do it ? ” 

“ I’m not asleep,” answered the other, sitting up, and then 
slowly getting on his feet. “ Heigh-ho ! What are you going 
to have for dinner ? ” 

“ You are tired, Carl ; and I see the reason. You have 
been in the swamp.” Deal’s eyes as he spoke were fixed 


H4 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


upon the younger man’s shoes, where traces of the ink-black 
soil of South Devil were plainly visible. 

Carl laughed. “ Can’t keep anything from your Yankee 
eyes, can I, Mark ? ” he said. “ But I only went a little way." 

“ It isn’t the distance, it’s the folly,” said Mark, shortly, 
going toward the house. 

“ I never pretended to be wise,” answered Carl, slouching 
along behind him, with his hands wrapped in his blue cotton 
handkerchief, arranged like a muff. 

Although Deal worked hard in his fields all day, he did 
not cook. In a third out-building lived a gray-headed old 
negro with one eye, who cooked for the new tenant — and 
cooked well. His name was Scipio, but Carl called him Af- 
ricanus ; he said it was equally appropriate, and sounded 
more impressive. Scip’s kitchen was out-of-doors — simply 
an old Spanish chimney. His kettle and few dishes, when 
not in use, hung on the sides of this chimney, which now, all 
alone in the white sand, like an obelisk, cooked solemnly the 
old negro’s messes, as half a century before it had cooked the 
more dignified repasts of the dead hidalgos. The brothers 
ate in the open air also, sitting at a rough board table which 
Mark had made behind the house. They had breakfast soon 
after daylight, and at sunset dinner ; in the middle of the 
day they took only fruit and bread. 

“ Day after to-morrow will be Christmas,” said Carl, 
leaving the table and lighting his long pipe. “ What are you 
going to do ? ” 

“ I had not thought of doing anything in particular.” 

“ Well, at least don’t work on Christmas day.” 

“ What would you have me do ? ” 

Carl took his pipe from his mouth, and gazed at his broth- 
er in silence for a moment. “ Go into the swamp with me,” 
he urged, with sudden vehemence. “ Come — for the whole 
day ! ” 

Deal was smoking, too, a short clay pipe, very different 
from the huge, fantastic, carved bowl with long stem which 


THE SOUTH DEVIL . 


H5 

weighed down Carl’s thin mouth. “ I don’t know what to do 
with you, boy. You are mad about the swamp,” he said, 
smoking on calmly. 

They were sitting in front of the house now, in two chairs 
tilted back against its wall. The dark, odorous earth looked 
up to the myriad stars, but was not lighted by them ; a soft, 
languorous gloom lay over the land. Carl brushed away the 
ashes from his pipe impatiently. 

“ It’s because you can’t understand,” he said. “ The 
swamp haunts me. I ?nust see it once ; you will be wise to 
let me see it once. We might go through in a canoe togeth- 
er by the branch ; the branch goes through.” 

“ The water goes, no doubt, but a canoe couldn’t.” 

“ Yes, it could, with an axe. It has been done. They 
used to go up to San Miguel that way sometimes from here ; 
it shortens the distance more than half.” 

“ Who told you all this — Scip ? What does he know 
about it ? ” 

“ Oh, Africanus has seen several centuries ; the Spaniards 
were living here only fifty years ago, you know, and that's 
nothing to him. He remembers the Indian attack.” 

“ Ponce de Leon, too, I suppose ; or, to go back to the old 
country, Cleopatra. But you must give up the swamp, Carl. 
I positively forbid it. The air inside is thick and deadly, to 
say nothing of the other dangers. How do you suppose it 
gained its name ? ” 

“ Diabolus is common enough as a title among Spaniards 
and Italians ; it don’t mean anything. The prince of dark- 
ness never lives in the places called by his name ; he likes 
baptized cities better.” 

“Death lives there, however; and I brought you down 
here to cure you.” 

“ I’m all right. See how much stronger I am ! I shall 
soon be quite well again, old man,” answered Carl, with the 
strange, sanguine faith of the consumptive. 

The next day Deal worked very hard. He had a curious, 

7 


4 6 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


inflexible, possibly narrow kind of conscience, which required 
him to do double duty to-day in order to make up for the 
holiday granted to Carl to-morrow. There was no task- 
master over him ; even the seasons were not task-masters 
here. But so immovable were his own rules for himself that 
nothing could have induced him to abate one jot of the task he 
had laid out in his own mind when he started afield at dawn. 

When he returned home at sunset, somewhat later than 
usual, Carl was absent. Old Scipio could give no informa- 
tion ; he had not seen “young marse ” since early morning. 
Deal put up his tools, ate something, and then, with a flask 
in his pocket, a fagot of light-wood torches bound on his 
back, and one of these brilliant, natural flambeaux in his hand, 
he started away on his search, going down one of the orange- 
aisles, the light gleaming back through the arch till he reached 
the far end, when it disappeared. He crossed an old indigo- 
field, and pushed his way through its hedge of Spanish-bayo- 
nets, while the cacti sown along the hedge — small, flat green 
plates with white spines, like hideous tufted insects — fastened 
themselves viciously on the strong leather of his high boots. 
Then, reaching the sugar waste, he advanced a short distance 
on the old causeway, knelt down, and in the light of the torch 
examined its narrow, sandy level. Yes, there were the foot- 
prints he had feared to find. Carl had gone again into the 
poisonous swamp — the beautiful, deadly South Devil. And 
this time he had not come back. 

The elder brother rose, and with the torch held downward 
slowly traced the footmarks. There was a path, or rather 
trail, leading in a short distance. The footprints followed it 
as far as it went, and the brother followed the footprints, the 
red glare of the torch foreshortening each swollen, gray-white 
cypress-trunk, and giving to the dark, hidden pools below 
bright gleamings which they never had by day. He soon 
came to the end of the trail ; here he stopped and shouted 
loudly several times, with pauses between for answer. No 
answer came. 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


H7 

“ But I know the trick of this thick air,” he said to him- 
self. “ One can’t hear anything in a cypress-swamp.” 

He was now obliged to search closely for the footprints, 
pausing at each one, having no idea in which direction the 
next would tend. The soil did not hold the impressions well ; 
it was not mud or mire, but wet, spongy, fibrous, black earth, 
thinly spread over the hard roots of trees, which protruded in 
distorted shapes in every direction. He traced what seemed 
footmarks across an open space, and then lost them on the 
brink of a dark pool. If Carl had kept on, he must have 
crossed this pool ; but how ? On the sharp cypress-knees 
standing sullenly in the claret-colored water ? He went all 
around the open space again, seeking for footmarks else- 
where ; but no, they ended at the edge of the pool. Cutting 
a long stick, he made his way across by its aid, stepping from 
knee-point to knee-point. On the other side he renewed his 
search for the trail, and after some labor found it, and went 
on again. 

He toiled forward slowly in this way a long time, his course 
changing often ; Carl’s advance seemed to have been aimless. 
Then, suddenly, the footprints ceased. There was not an- 
other one visible anywhere, though he searched in all direc- 
tions again and again. He looked at his watch ; it was mid- 
night. He hallooed ; no reply. What could have become of 
the lad ? He now began to feel his own fatigue ; after the long 
day of toil in the hot sun, these hours of laboring over the 
ground in a bent position, examining it inch by inch, brought 
on pains in his shoulders and back. Planting the torch he was 
carrying in the soft soil of a little knoll, he placed another one 
near it, and sat down between the two flames to rest for a 
minute or two, pouring out for himself a little brandy in the 
bottom of the cup belonging to his flask. He kept strict 
watch as he did this. Venomous things, large and small, 
filled the vines above, and might drop at any moment upon 
him. But he had quick eyes and ears, and no intention of 
dying in the South Devil ; so, while he watched keenly, he took 


148 


THE SOUTH DEVIL . 


the time to swallow the brandy. After a moment or two he 
was startled by a weak human voice saying, with faint deci- 
sion, “ That's brandy ! ” 

“ I should say it was,” called Deal, springing to his feet. 
“ Where are you,, then ? ” 

“ Here.” 

The rescuer followed the sound, and, after one or two 
errors, came upon the body of his brother lying on a dank 
mat of water-leaves and ground-vines at the edge of a pool. 
In the red light of the torch he looked as though he was dead ; 
his eyes only were alive. 

“ Brandy,” he said again, faintly, as Deal appeared. 

After he had swallowed a small quantity of the stimulant, 
he revived with unexpected swiftness. 

“ I have been shouting for you not fifty feet away,” said 
Deal ; “ how is it that you did not hear ? ” Then in the same 
breath, in a soft undertone, he added, “ Ah-h-h-h ! ” and with- 
out stirring a hair’s breadth from where he stood, or making 
an unnecessary motion, he slowly drew forth his pistol, took 
careful aim, and fired. He was behind his brother, who lay 
with closed eyes, not noticing the action. 

“What have you killed?” asked Carl languidly. “I’ve 
seen nothing but birds ; and the most beautiful ones, too.” 

“ A moccasin, that’s all,” said Deal, kicking the dead crea- 
ture into the pool. He did not add that the snake was coiled 
for a spring. “ Let us get back to the little knoll where I was, 
Carl ; it’s drier there.” 

“ I don’t think I can walk, old man. I fell from the vines 
up there, and something’s the matter with my ankles.” 

“ Well, I can carry you that distance,” said Deal. “ Put 
your arms around my neck, and raise yourself as I lift you — 
so.” 

The burning flambeau on the knoll served as a guide, and, 
after one or two pauses, owing to the treacherous footing, the 
elder brother succeeded in carrying the other thither. He 
then took off the light woolen coat he had put on before en- 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


H9 

tering the swamp, spread it over the driest part of the little 
knoll, and laid Carl upon it. 

“If you can not walk," he said, “we shall have to wait 
here until daylight. I could not carry you and the torch also ; 
and the footing is bad — there are twenty pools to cross, or go 
around. Fortunately, we have light-wood enough to burn all 
night.” 

He lit fresh torches and arranged them at the four corners 
of their little knoll ; then he began to pace slowly to and fro, 
like a picket walking his beat. 

“ What were you doing up among those vines ? ” he asked. 
He knew that it would be better for them' both if they could 
keep themselves awake ; those who fell asleep in the night air 
of South Devil generally awoke the next morning in another 
world. 

“ I climbed up a ladder of vines to gather some of the 
great red blossoms swinging in the air ; and, once up, I went 
along on the mat to see what I could find. It’s beautiful 
there — fairy-land. You can’t see anything down below, but 
above the long moss hangs in fine, silvery lines like spray from 
ever so high up, and mixed with it air-plants, sheafs, and bells 
of scarlet and cream-colored blossoms. I sat there a long 
time looking, and I suppose I must have dozed ; for I don’t 
know when I fell.” 

“ You did not hear me shout? ” 

“ No. The first consciousness I had was the odor of 
brandy.” 

“ The odor reached you, and the sound did not ; that is 
one of the tricks of such air as this ! You must have climbed 
up, I suppose, at the place where I lost the trail. What time 
did you come in ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” murmured Carl drowsily. 

“ Look here ! you must keep awake ! ” 

“ I can’t,” answered the other. 

Deal shook him, but could not rouse him even to anger. 
He only opened his blue eyes and looked reproachfully at his 


l 5° 


THE SOUTH DEVIL . 


brother, but as though he was a long distance off. Then Deal 
lifted him up, uncorked the flask, and put it to his lips. 

“ Drink ! ” he said, loudly and sternly ; and mechanically 
Carl obeyed. Once or twice his head moved aside, as if re- 
fusing more ; but Deal again said, “ Drink ! ” and without 
pity made the sleeper swallow every drop the flask contained. 
Then he laid him down upon the coat again, and covered his 
face and head with his own broad-brimmed palmetto hat, 
Carl’s hat having been lost. He had done all he could — 
changed the lethargy of the South Devil into the sleep of 
drunkenness, the last named at least a human slumber. He 
was now left to keep the watch alone. 

During the first half hour a dozen red and green things, 
of the centipede and scorpion kind, stupefied by the glare of 
the torches, fell from the trees; and he dispatched them. 
Next, enormous grayish-white spiders, in color exactly like 
the bark, moved slowly one furred leg into view, and then an- 
other, on the trunks of the cypresses near by, gradually com- 
ing wholly into the light — creatures covering a circumference 
as large as that of a plate. At length the cypresses all 
around the knoll were covered with them ; and they all seemed 
to be watching him. He was not watching the spiders, how- 
ever; he cared very little for the spiders. His eyes were 
upon the ground all the time, moving along the borders of his 
little knoll-fort. It was bounded on two sides by pools, in 
whose dark depths he knew moccasins were awake, watching 
the light, too, with whatever of curiosity belongs to a snake’s 
cold brain. His torches aroused them ; and yet darkness would 
have been worse. In the light he could at least see them, if 
they glided forth and tried to ascend the brilliant knoll. After 
a while they began to rise to the surface ; he could distinguish 
portions of their bodies in waving lines, moving noiselessly 
hither and thither, appearing and disappearing suddenly, until 
the pools around seemed alive with them. There was not a 
sound ; the soaked forest stood motionless. The absolute 
stillness made the quick gliding motions 'of the moccasins 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


!5i 

even more horrible. Yet Deal had no instinctive dread of 
snakes. The terrible “ coach-whip,” the deadly and gro- 
tesque spread-adder, the rattlesnake of the barrens, and these 
great moccasins of the pools were endowed with no imagi- 
nary horrors in his eyes. He accepted them as nature made 
them, and not as man’s fancy painted them ; it was only their 
poison-fangs he feared. 

“ If the sea-crab could sting, how hideous we should 
think him ! If the lobster had a deadly venom, how devilish 
his shape would seem to us ! ” he said. 

But now no imagination was required to make the moc- 
casins terrible. His revolver carried six balls ; and he had 
already used one of them. Four hours must pass before 
dawn ; there could be no unnecessary shooting. The crea- 
tures might even come out and move along the edge of his 
knoll ; only when they showed an intention of coming up the 
slope must their gliding life be ended. The moccasin is not a 
timorous or quick-nerved snake; in a place like the South 
Devil, when a human foot or boat approaches, generally he 
does not stir. His great body, sometimes over six feet in 
length, and thick and fat in the middle, lies on a log or at the 
edge of a pool, seemingly too lazy to move. But none the 
less, when roused, is his coil sudden and his long spring sure ; 
his venom is deadly. After a time one of the creatures did 
come out and glide along the edge of the knoll. He went 
back into the water; but a second came out on the other 
side. During the night Deal killed three ; he was an excel- 
lent marksman, and picked them off easily as they crossed 
his dead-line. 

“ Fortunately they come one by one,” he said to himself. 
“ If there was any concert of action among them, I couldn’t 
hold the place a minute.” 

As the last hour began, the long hour before dawn, he felt 
the swamp lethargy stealing into his own brain ; he saw the 
trees and torches doubled. He walked to and fro more quickly, 
and sang to keep himself awake. He knew only a few old- 


52 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


fashioned songs, and the South Devil heard that night, prob- 
ably for the first time in its tropical life, the ancient Northern 
strains of “ Gayly the Troubadour touched his Guitar.” Deal 
was no troubadour, and he had no guitar. But he sang on 
bravely, touching that stringed instrument, vocally at least, 
and bringing himself “ home from the war ” over and over 
again, until at last faint dawn penetrated from above down to 
the knoll where the four torches were burning. They were 
the last torches, and Deal was going through his sixtieth 
rehearsal of the “ Troubadour ” ; but, instead of “ Lady-love, 
lady-lo-o-o-ve,” whom he apostrophized, a large moccasin 
rose from the pool, as if in answer. She might have been the 
queen of the moccasins, and beautiful — to moccasin eyes ; 
but to Deal she was simply the largest and most hideous of 
all the snake-visions of the night. He gave her his fifth ball, 
full in her mistaken brain ; and, if she had admired him (or 
the “Troubadour ”), she paid for it with her life. 

This was the last. Daylight appeared. The watchman 
put out his torches and roused the sleeper. “ Carl ! Carl ! 
It’s daylight. Let us get out of this confounded crawling 
hole, and have a breath of fresh air.” 

Carl stirred, and • opened his eyes ; they were heavy and 
dull. His brother lifted him, told him to hold on tightly, and 
started with his burden toward home. The snakes had dis- 
appeared, the gray spiders had vanished; he could see his 
way now, and he followed his own trail, which he had taken 
care to make distinct when he came in the night before. 
But, loaded down as he was, and obliged to rest frequently, 
and also to go around all the pools, hours passed before he 
reached the last cypresses and came out on the old causeway 
across the sugar-waste. 

It was Christmas morning; the thermometer stood at 
eighty-eight. 

Carl slept off his enforced drunkenness in his hammock. 
Mark, having bandaged his brother’s strained ankles, threw 
himself upon his rude couch, and fell into a heavy slumber 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


53 


also. He slept until sunset ; then he rose, plunged his head 
into a tub of the limpid, pure, but never cold water of Flori- 
da, drawn from his shallow well, and went out to the chimney 
to see about dinner. The chimney was doing finely : a fiery 
plume of sparks waved from its white top, a red bed of coals 
glowed below. Scip moved about with as much equanimity 
as though he had a row of kitchen-tables upon which to ar- 
range his pans and dishes, instead of ruined blocks of stone, 
under the open sky. The dinner was good. Carl, awake at 
last, was carried out to the table to enjoy it, and then brought 
back to his chair in front of the house to smoke his evening 
pipe. 

“ I must make you a pair of crutches,” said Deal. 

“ One will do ; my right ankle is not much hurt, I think.” 

The fall, the air of the swamp, and the inward drenching 
of brandy had left Carl looking much as usual ; the tenacious 
disease that held him swallowed the lesser ills. But for the 
time, at least, his wandering footsteps were staid. 

“ I suppose there is no use in my asking, Carl, why you 
went in there ? ” said Deal, after a while. 

“ No, there isn’t. I’m haunted — that’s all.” 

u But what is it that haunts you ? ” 

“ Sounds. You couldn’t understand, though, if I was to 
talk all night.” 

“ Perhaps I could ; perhaps I can understand more than 
you imagine. I’ll tell you a story presently ; but first you 
must explain to me, at least as well as you can, what it is that 
attracts you in South Devil.” 

“ Oh — well,” said Carl, with a long, impatient sigh, closing 
his eyes wearily. “ I am a musician, you know, a musician 
manquS ; a musician who can’t play. Something’s the mat- 
ter ; I hear music, but can not bring it out. And I know so 
well what it ought to be, ought to be and isn’t, that I’ve broken 
my violin in pieces a dozen times in my rages about it. Now, 
other fellows in orchestras, who don't know, get along very 
well. But I couldn't. I’ve thought at times that, although I 


154 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


can not sound what I hear with my own hands, perhaps I 
could write it out so that other men could sound it. The 
idea has never come to anything definite yet — that is, what 
you would call definite ; but it haunts me persistently, and 
now it has got into that swamp. The wish,” here Carl laid 
down his great pipe, and pressed his hand eagerly upon his 
brother’s knee — “ the wish that haunts me — drives me — is to 
write out the beautiful music, of the South Devil, the sounds 
one hears in there ” — 

“ But there are no sounds.” 

“ No sounds ? You must be deaf ! The air fairly reeks 
with sounds, with harmonies. But there — I told you you 
couldn’t understand.” He leaned back against the wall again, 
and took up the great pipe, which looked as though it must 
consume whatever small store of strength remained to him. 

“ Is it what is called an opera you want to write, like — like 
the ‘ Creation,’ for instance ? ” asked Deal. The “ Creation ” 
was the only long piece of music he had ever heard. 

Carl groaned. “ Oh, dont talk of it ! ” he said ; then add- 
ed, irritably, “ It’s a song, that’s all — the song of a Southern 
swamp.” 

“ Call it by it’s real name, Devil,” said the elder brother, 
grimly. 

“ I would, if I was rich enough to have a picture painted 
— the Spirit of the Swamp — a beautiful woman, falsely called 
a devil by cowards, dark, languorous, mystical, sleeping among 
the vines I saw up there, with the great red blossoms drop- 
ping around her.” 

“ And the great mottled snakes coiling over her ? ” 

“ / didn’t see any snakes.” 

“Well,” said Mark, refilling his pipe, “now I’m going to 
tell you my story. When I met you on that windy pier at 
Exton, and proposed that you should come down here with 
me, I was coming myself, in any case, wasn’t I ? And why ? 
I wanted to get to a place where I could be warm — warm, 
hot, baked ; warm through and through ; warm all the time. 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


l SS 

I wanted to get to a place where the very ground was warm. 
And now — I’ll tell you why.” 

He rose from his seat, laid down his pipe, and, extending 
his hand, spoke for about fifteen minutes without pause. 
Then he turned, went back hastily to the old chimney, where 
red coals still lingered, and sat down close to the glow, leaving 
Carl wonder-struck in his tilted chair. The elder man leaned 
over the fire and held his hands close to the coals; Carl 
watched him. It was nine o’clock, and the thermometer 
marked eighty. 

For nearly a month after Christmas, life on the old planta- 
tion went on without event or disaster. Carl, with his crutch 
and cane, could not walk far ; his fancy now was to limp 
through the east orange-aisle to the place of tombs, and sit 
there for hours, playing softly, what might be called crooning, 
on his violin. The place of tombs was a small, circular space 
surrounded by wild orange-trees in a close, even row, like a 
hedge ; here were four tombs, massive, oblong blocks of the 
white conglomerate of the coast, too coarse-grained to hold 
inscription or mark of any kind. Who the old Spaniards were 
whose bones lay beneath, and what names they bore in the 
flesh, no one knew ; all record was lost. Outside in the wild 
thicket was a tomb still more ancient, and of different con- 
struction : four slabs of stone, uncovered, about three feet 
high, rudely but firmly placed, as though inclosing a coffin. 
In the earth between these low walls grew a venerable cedar ; 
but, old as it was, it must have been planted by chance or by 
hand after the human body beneath had been laid in its place. 

“ Why do you come here ? ” said Deal, pausing and look- 
ing into the place of tombs, one morning, on his way to the 
orange-grove. “ There are plenty of pleasanter spots about.” 

“ No ; I like this better,” answered Carl, without stopping 
the low chant of his violin. “ Besides, they like it too.” 

“ Who ? ” 

“The old fellows down below. The chap outside there, 
who must have been an Aztec, I suppose, and the original 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


J 5 6 

proprietor, catches a little of it ; but I generally limp over and 
give him a tune to himself before going home. I have to 
imagine the Aztec style.” 

Mark gave a short laugh, and went on to his work. But 
he knew the real reason for Carl’s fancy for the place ; be- 
tween the slim, clean trunks of the orange-trees, the long 
green line of South Devil bounded the horizon, the flat tops 
of the cypresses far above against the sky, and the vines and 
silver moss filling the space below — a luxuriant wall across 
the broad, thinly-treed expanses of the pine barrens. 

One jevening in January Deal came homeward as usual at 
sunset, and found a visitor. Carl introduced him. “ My 
friend Schwartz,” he said. Schwartz merited his name ; he 
was dark in complexion, hair, and eyes, and if he had any 
aims they were dark also. He was full of anecdotes and jests, 
and Carl laughed heartily ; Mark had never heard him laugh 
in that way before. The elder brother ordered a good supper, 
and played the host as well as he could ; but, in spite of the 
anecdotes, he did not altogether like friend Schwartz. Early 
the next morning, while the visitor was still asleep, he called 
Carl outside, and asked in an undertone who he was. 

“ Oh, I met him first in Berlin, and afterward I knew him 
in New York,” said Carl. “All the orchestra fellows know 
Schwartz.” 

“ Is he a musician, then ? ” 

“Not exactly; but he used to be always around, you 
know.” 

“ How comes he down here ? ” 

“ Just chance. He had an offer from a sort of a — of a 
restaurant, up in San Miguel, a new place recently opened. 
The other day he happened to find out that I was here, and 
so came down to see me.” 

“ How did he find out ? ” 

“ I suppose you gave our names to the agent when you 
took the place, didn’t you ? ” 

“ I gave mine ; and — yes, I think I mentioned you.” 


THE SOUTH DEVIL . . 


57 


“ If you didn’t, I mentioned myself. I was at San Miguel, 
two weeks you remember, while you were making ready down 
here ; and I venture to say almost everybody remembers Carl 
Brenner.” 

Mark smiled. Carl’s fixed, assured self-conceit in the face 
of the utter failure he had made of his life did not annoy, but 
rather amused him ; it seemed part of the lad’s nature. 

“ I don’t want to grudge you your amusement, Carl,” he 
said ; “ but I don’t much like this Schwartz of yours.” 

“ He won’t stay ; he has to go back to-day. He came in 
a cart with a man from San Miguel, who, by some rare chance, 
had an errand down this forgotten, God-forsaken, dead-alive 
old road. The man will pass by on his way home this after- 
noon, and Schwartz is to meet him at the edge of the bar- 
ren.” 

“ Have an early dinner, then ; there are birds and venison, 
and there is lettuce enough for a salad. Scip can make you 
some coffee.” 

But, although he thus proffered his best, none the less did 
the elder brother take with him the key of the little chest 
which contained his small store of brandy and the two or 
three bottles of orange wine which he had brought down with 
him from San Miguel. 

After he had gone, Schwartz and Carl strolled around the 
plantation in the sunshine. Schwartz did not care to sit 
down among Carl’s tombs ; he said they made him feel 
moldy. Carl argued the point with him in vain, and then 
gave it up, and took him around to the causeway across the 
sugar-waste, where they stretched themselves out in the shade 
cast by the ruined wall of the old mill. 

“ What brought this brother of yours away down here ? ” 
asked the visitor, watching a chameleon on the wall near by. 
“ See that little beggar swelling out his neck ! ” 

« He’s catching flies. In a storm they will come and hang 
themselves by one paw on our windows, and the wind will 
blow them out like dead leaves, and rattle them about, and 


58 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


they’ll never move. But, when the sun shines out, there they 
are all alive again.” 

“ But about your brother? ” 

“ He isn’t my brother.” 

“ What ? ” 

“My mother, a widow, named Brenner, with one son, 
Carl, married his father, a widower, named Deal, with one 
son, Mark. There you have the whole.” 

“ He is a great deal older than you. I suppose he has 
been in the habit of assisting you ? ” 

“ Never saw him in my life until this last October, when, 
one windy day, he found me coughing on the Exton pier ; 
and, soon afterward, he brought me down here.” 

“ Came, then, on your account ? ” 

“ By no means ; he was coming himself. It’s a queer 
story; I’ll tell it to you. It seems he went with the Kenton 
Arctic expedition — you remember it ? Two of the ships were 
lost ; his was one. But I’ll have to get up and say it as he 
did.” Here Carl rose, put down his pipe, extended one hand 
stiffly in a fixed position, and went on speaking, his very 
voice, by force of the natural powers of mimicry he possessed, 
sounding like Mark’s : 

“We were a company of eight when we started away 
from the frozen hulk, which would never see clear water un- 
der her bows again. Once before we had started, thirty-five 
strong, and had come back thirteen. Five had died in the 
old ship, and now the last survivors were again starting forth. 
We drew a sledge behind us, carrying our provisions and the 
farcical records of the expedition which had ended in death, 
as they must all end. We soon lose sight of the vessel. It 
was our only shelter, and we look back ; then, at each other. 
‘ Cheer up ! ’ says one. ‘ Take this extra skin, Mark ; I am 
stronger than you.’ It’s Proctor’s voice that speaks. Ten 
days go by. There are only five of us now, and we are walk- 
ing on doggedly across the ice, the numbing ice, the killing 
ice, the never-ending, gleaming, taunting, devilish ice. We 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


l S9 


have left the sledge behind. No trouble now for each to 
carry his share of food, it is so light. Now we walk together 
for a while ; now we separate, sick of seeing one another’s 
pinched faces, but we keep within call. On the eleventh day 
a wind rises ; bergs come sailing into view. One moves down 
upon us. Its peak shining in the sunshine far above is no- 
thing to the great mass that moves on under the water. Our 
ice-field breaks into a thousand pieces. We leap from block 
to block ; we cry aloud in our despair ; we call to each other, 
and curse, and pray. But the strips of dark water widen be- 
tween us ; our ice-islands grow smaller ; and a current bears 
us onward. We can no longer keep in motion, and freeze as 
we stand. Two float near each other as darkness falls ; 
* Cheer up, Mark, cheer up ! ’ cries one, and throws his flask 
across the gap between. Again it is Proctor’s voice that 
speaks. 

“In the morning only one is left alive. The others are 
blocks of ice, and float around in the slow eddy, each sol- 
emnly staring, one foot advanced, as if still keeping up the 
poor cramped steps with which he had fought off death. The 
one who is still alive floats around and around, with these 
dead men standing stiffly on their islands, all day, sometimes 
so near them that the air about him is stirred by their icy 
forms as they pass. At evening his cake drifts away through 
an opening toward the south, and he sees them no more, 
save that after him follows his dead friend, Proctor, at some 
distance behind. As night comes, the figure seems to wave 
its rigid hand in the distance, and cry from its icy throat, 

‘ Cheer up, Mark, and good-by ! ’ ” 

Here Carl stopped, rubbed his hands, shivered, and looked 
to see how his visitor took the narrative. 

“ It’s a pretty cold story,” said Schwartz, “ even in this 
broiling sun. So he came down here to get a good, full 
warm, did he ? He’s got the cash, I suppose, to pay for his 
fancies.” 

“ I don’t call that a fancy, exactly,” said Carl, seating him- 


i6o 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


self on the hot white sand in the sunshine, with his thin hands 
clasped around his knees. “ As to cash — I don’t know. He 
works very hard.” 

“ He works because he likes it,” said Schwartz, contemp- 
tuously ; “ he looks like that sort of a man. But, at any rate, 
he don’t mak tyou work much ! ” 

“ He is awfully good to me,” admitted Carl. 

“ It isn’t on account of your beauty.” 

“ Oh, I’m good looking enough in my way,” replied the 
youth. “ I acknowledge it isn’t a common way ; like yours, 
for instance.” As he spoke, he passed his hand through his 
thin light hair, drew the ends of the long locks forward, and 
examined theni admiringly. 

“ As he never saw you before, it couldn’t have been 
brotherly love,” pursued the other. “ I suppose it was pity.” 

“No, it wasn’t pity, either, you old blockhead,” said Carl, 
laughing. “ He likes to have me with him ; he likes me.” 

“I see that myself, and that’s exactly the point. Why 
should he ? You haven’t any inheritance to will to him, have 
you ? ” 

“ My violin, and the clothes on my back. I believe that’s 
all,” answered Carl, lightly. He took off his palmetto hat, 
made a pillow of it, and stretched himself out at full length, 
closing his eyes. 

“ Well, give me a brother with cash, and I’ll go to sleep, 
too,” said Schwartz. When Deal came home at sunset, the 
dark-skinned visitor was gone. 

But he came again ; and this time stayed three days. 
Mark allowed it, for Carl’s sake. All he said was, “ He can 
not be of much use in the restaurant up there. What is he ? 
Cook ? Or waiter ? ” 

“ Oh, Schwartz isn’t a servant, old fellow. He helps en- 
tertain the guests.” 

“ Sings, I suppose.” 

Carl did not reply, and Deal set Schwartz down as a lager- 
beer-hall ballad-singer, borne southward on the tide of winter 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


161 


travel to Florida. One advantage at least was gained — when 
Schwartz was there, Carl was less tempted by the swamp. 

And now, a third time, the guest came. During the first 
evening of this third visit, he was so good-tempered, so frank- 
ly lazy and amusing, that even Deal was disarmed. “ He’s a 
good-for-nothing, probably; but there’s no active harm in 
him,” he said to himself. 

The second evening was a repetition of the first. 

When he came home at sunset on the third evening, Carl 
was lying coiled up close to the wall of the house, his face 
hidden in his arms. 

“ What are you doing there ? ” said Deal, as he passed by, 
on his way to put up the tools. 

No answer. But Carl had all kinds of whims, and Deal 
was used to them. He went across to Scip’s chimney. 

“ Awful time, cap’en,” said the old negro, in a low voice. 
“ Soon’s you’s gone, dat man make young marse drink, and 
bot’ begin to holler and fight.” 

“ Drink ? They had noTiquor.” 

“ Yes, dey hab. Mus' hab brought ’em ’long.” 

“ Where is the man ? ” 

“ Oh, he gone long ago — gone at noon.” 

Deal went to his brother. “Carl,” he said, “get up. 
Dinner is ready.” But the coiled form did not stir. 

“ Don’t be a fool,” continued Deal. “ I know you’ve been 
drinking ; Scip told me. It’s a pity. But no reason why you 
should not eat.” 

Carl did not move. Deal went off to his dinner, and sent 
some to Carl. But the food remained untasted. Then Deal 
passed into the house to get some tobacco for his pipe. Then 
a loud cry was heard. The hiding-place which his Yankee 
fingers had skillfully fashioned in the old wall had been rifled ; 
all his money was gone. No one knew the secret of the spot 
but Carl. 

“ Did he overpower you and take it ? ” he asked, kneeling 
down and lifting Carl by force, so that he could see his face. 


162 


THE SOUTH DEVIL . 


“No; I gave it to him,” Carl answered, thickly and 
slowly. 

“ You gave it to him ? ” 

“ I lost it — at cards.” , 

“ Cards /” 

Deal had never thought of that. All at once the whole 
flashed upon him : the gambler who was always “ around ” 
with the “ orchestra fellows ” ; the “ restaurant ” at San 
Miguel where he helped “ entertain ” the guests ; the proba- 
bility that business was slack in the ancient little town, unac- 
customed to such luxuries ; and the treasure-trove of an old 
acquaintance within a day’s journey — an old acquaintance 
like Carl, who had come also into happy possession of a rich 
brother. A rich brother ! — probably that was what Schwartz 
called him ! 

At any rate, rich or poor, Schwartz had it all. With the 
exception of one hundred dollars which he had left at San 
Miguel as a deposit, he had now only five dollars in the 
world ; Carl had gambled away his all. 

It was a hard blow. 

-4 

He lifted his brother in his arms and carried him in to his 
hammock. A few minutes later, staff in hand, he started 
down the live-oak avenue toward the old road which led 
northward to San Miguel. The moonlight was brilliant ; he 
walked all night. At dawn he was searching the little city. 

Yes, the man was known there. He frequented the Es- 
meralda Parlors. The Esmeralda Parlors, however, repre- 
sented by an attendant, a Northern mulatto, with straight 
features, long, narrow eyes, and pale-golden skin, a bronze 
piece of insolence, who was also more faultlessly dressed than 
any one else in San Miguel, suavely replied that Schwartz 
was no longer one of their “ guests ” ; he had severed his 
connection with the Parlors several days before. Where was 
he ? The Parlors had no idea. 

But the men about the docks knew. Schwartz had been 
seen the previous evening negotiating passage at the last mo- 


THE SOUTH DEVIL . 


163 


ment on a coasting schooner bound South— one of those 
nondescript little craft engaged in smuggling and illegal trad- 
ing, with which the waters of the West Indies are infested. 
The schooner had made her way out of the harbor by moon- 
light. Although ostensibly bound for Key West, no one 
could say with any certainty that she would touch there ; 
bribed by Schwartz, with all the harbors, inlets, and lagoons 
of the West Indies open to her, pursuit would be worse than 
hopeless. Deal realized this. He ate the food he had brought 
with him, drank a cup of coffee, called for his deposit, and 
then walked back to the plantation. 

When he came into the little plaza, Carl was sitting on the 
steps of their small house. His head was clear again; he 
looked pale and wasted. 

“ It’s all right,” said Deal. “ I’ve traced him. In the mean 
time, don’t worry, Carl. If I don’t mind it, why should you ? ” 
Without saying more, he went inside, changed his shoes, 
then came out, ordered dinner, talked to Scip, and when the 
meal was ready called Carl, and took his place at the table as 
though nothing had happened. Carl scarcely spoke ; Deal 
approved his silence. He felt so intensely for the lad, realized 
so strongly what he must be feeling — suffering and feeling — 
that conversation on the subject would have been at that 
early moment unendurable. But waking during the night, 
and hearing him stirring, uneasy, and apparently feverish, he 
went across to the hammock. 

“ You are worrying about it, Carl, and you are not strong 
enough to stand worry. Look here — I have forgiven you ; I 
would forgive you twice as much. Have you no idea why I 
brought you down here with me ? ” 

“ Because you’re kind-hearted. And perhaps, too, you 
thought it would be lonely,” answered Carl. 

“ No, I’m not kind-hearted, and I never was lonely in my 
life. I didn’t intend to tell you, but— you must ?iot worry. 
It is your name, Carl, and — and your blue eyes. I was fond 
of Eliza.” 


164 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


“ Fond of Leeza — Leeza Brenner ? Then why on earth 
didn’t you marry her ? ” said Carl, sitting up in his hammock, 
and trying to see his step-brother’s face in the moonlight 
that came through the chinks in the shutters. 

Mark’s face was in shadow. “ She liked some one else 
better,” he said. 

“ Who ? ” 

“ Never mind. But — yes, I will tell you — Graves.” 

“ John Graves ? That dunce ? No, she didn’t.” 

“As it happens, I know she did. But we won’t talk 
about it. I only told you to show you why I cared for 
you.” 

“ I wouldn’t care about a girl that didn’t care for me,” 
said Carl, still peering curiously through the checkered dark- 
ness. The wizened young violin-player fancied himself an 
omnipotent power among women. But Deal had gone to his 
bed, and would say no more. 

Carl . had heard something now which deeply astonished 
him. He had not been much troubled about the lost money ; 
it was not in his nature to be much troubled about money at 
any time. He was sorry ; but what was gone was gone ; 
why waste thought upon it? This he called philosophy. 
Mark, out of regard for Carl’s supposed distress, had forbid- 
den conversation on the subject ; but he was not shutting out, 
as he thought, torrents of shame, remorse, and self-condemna- 
tion. Carl kept silence willingly enough ; but, even if the bar 
had been removed, he would have had little to say. During 
the night his head had ached, and he had had some fever ; 
but it was more the effect of the fiery, rank liquor pressed 
upon him by Schwartz than of remorse. But now he had 
heard what really interested and aroused him. Mark in love ! 
— hard-working, steady, dull old Mark, whom he had thought 
endowed with no fancies at all, save perhaps that of being 
thoroughly warmed after his arctic freezing. Old Mark fond 
of Leeza — in love with Leeza ! 

Leeza wasn’t much. Carl did not even think his cousin 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


l6 5 

pretty ; his fancy was for something large and Oriental. But, 
pretty or not, she had evidently fascinated Mark Deal, com- 
ing, a poor little orphan maid, with her aunt, Carl’s mother, 
to brighten old Abner Deal’s farm-house, one mile from the 
windy Exton pier. Carl’s mother could not hope to keep her 
German son in this new home ; but she kept little Leeza, or 
Eliza, as the neighbors called her. And Mark, a shy, awk- 
ward boy, had learned to love the child, who had sweet blue 
eyes, and thick braids of flaxen hair fastened across the back 
of her head. 

“ To care all that for Leeza ! ” thought Carl, laughing si- 
lently in his hammock. “ And then to fancy that she liked 
that Graves ! And then to leave her, and come away off 
down here, just on the suspicion ! ” 

But Carl was mistaken. A man, be he never so awkward 
and silent, will generally make at least one effort to get the 
woman he loves. Mark had made two, and failed. After 
his first, he had gone North ; after his second, he had come 
South, bringing Leeza’s cousin with him. 

In the morning a new life began on the old plantation. 
First, Scipio was dismissed ; then the hunter who had kept 
the open-air larder supplied with game, an old man of un- 
known, or rather mixed descent, having probably Spanish, 
African, and Seminole blood in his veins, was told that his 
services were required no more. 

“ But are you going to starve us, then ? ” asked Carl, with 
a comical grimace. 

“I am a good shot, myself,” replied Deal ; “ and a fair 
cook, too.” 

“ But why do you do it ? ” pursued the other. He had 
forgotten all about the money. 

The elder man looked at his brother. Could it be possible 
that he had forgotten ? And, if he had, was it not necessary, 
in their altered circumstances, that the truth should be brought 
plainly before his careless eyes ? 

“ I am obliged to do it,” he answered, gravely. “ We 


1 66 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


must be very saving, Garl. Things will be easier, I hope, 
when the fields begin to yield." 

“ Good heavens, you don’t mean to say 1 took all you 
had ! ” said Carl, with an intonation showing that the fact that 
the abstracted sum was “all ’’ was impressing him more than 
any agency of his own in the matter. 

“ I told you I did not mind it," answered Mark, going off 
with his gun and game-bag. 

“ But / do, by Jove ! ” said Carl to himself, watching him 
disappear. 

Musicians, in this world’s knowledge and wisdom, are 
often fools, or rather they remain always children. The beau- 
tiful gift, the divine gift, the gift which is the nearest to heaven, 
is accompanied by lacks of another sort. Carl Brenner, like 
a child, could not appreciate poverty unless his dinner was 
curtailed, his tobacco gone. The petty changes now made 
in the small routine of each day touched him acutely, and 
roused him at last to the effort of connected, almost practical 
thought. Old Mark was troubled — poor. The cook was go- 
ing, the hunter discharged; the dinners would be good no 
longer. . This was because he, Carl, had taken the money. 
There was no especial harm in the act per se ; but, as the 
sum happened to be all old Mark had, it was unfortunate. 
Under the circumstances, what could he, Carl, do to help old 
Mark ? 

Mark loved that light-headed . little Leeza. Mark had 
brought him down here and taken care of him on Leeza’s 
account. Mark, therefore, should have Leeza. He, Carl, 
would bring it about. He set to work at once to be special 
providence in Mark’s affairs. He sat down, wrote a long let- 
ter, sealed it with a stern air, and then laid it on the table, 
got up, and surveyed it with decision. There it was — done ! 
Gone ! But no ; not “ gone " yet. And how could it go ? 
He was now confronted by the difficulty of mailing it without 
Mark’s knowledge. San Miguel was the nearest post-office ; 
and San Miguel was miles away. Africanus was half crip- 


THE SOUTH DEVIL . 


167 


pled ; the old hunter would come no more ; he himself could 
not walk half the distance. Then an idea Same to him : Afri- 
canus, although dismissed, was not yet gone. He went out 
to find him. 

Mark came home at night with a few birds. “ They will 
last us over one day,” he said, throwing down the spoil. 
‘‘You still here, Scip ? I thought I sent you off.” 

“ He’s going to-morrow,” interposed Carl. Scip sat up 
all night cooking. 

“ What in the world has got into him ? ” said Deal, as the 
light from the old chimney made their sleeping-room bright. 

“ He wants to leave us well supplied, I suppose,” safd 
Carl, from his hammock. “ Things keep better down here 
when they’re cooked, you know.” This was true ; but it was 
unusual for Carl to interest himself in such matters. 

The next morning Deal started on a hunting expedition, 
intending to be absent two days. Game was plenty in the 
high lands farther west. He had good luck, and came back 
at the end of the second day loaded, having left also several 
caches behind to be visited on the morrow. But there was 
no one in the house, or on the plantation ; both Scip and Carl 
were gone. 

A slip of paper was pinned to the red cotton door. It 
contained these words: “It’s all right, old fellow. If I’m 
not back at the end of three days, counting this as one, come 
into South Devil after me. You’ll find a trail.” 

“ Confound the boy ! ” said Deal, in high vexation. “ He's 
crazy.” He took a torch, went to the causeway, and there 
saw from the foot-prints that two had crossed. “ Scip went 
with him,” he thought, somewhat comforted. “ The old 
black rascal used to declare that he knew every inch of the 
swamp.” He went back, cooked his supper, and slept. In 
the matter of provisions, there was little left save what he 
kept under lock and key. Scipio had started with a good 
supply. At dawn he rose, made a fire under the old chimney, 
cooked some venison, baked some corn-bread, and, placing 


68 


THE SOUTH DEVIL . 


them in his bag, started into South Devil, a bundle of torches 
slung on his back as before, his gun in his hand, his revolver 
and knife in his belt. “ They have already been gone two 
days,” he said to himself; “they must be coming toward 
home, now.” He thought Carl was carrying out his cher- 
ished design of exploring the swamp. There was a trail — 
hatchet marks on the trees, and broken boughs. “ That’s 
old Scip. Carl would never have been so systematic,” he 
thought. 

He went on until noon, and then suddenly found himself 
on the bank of a sluggish stream. “ The Branch,” he said — 
"South Devil Branch. It joins West Devil, and the two 
make the San Juan Bautista (a queer origin for a saint!) 
three miles below Miguel. But where does the trail go 
now ? ” It went nowhere. He searched and searched, and 
could not find it. It ended at the Branch. Standing there 
in perplexity, he happened to raise his eyes. Small attention 
had he hitherto paid to the tangled vines and blossoms swing- 
ing above him. He hated the beauty of South Devil. But 
now he saw a slip of paper hanging from a vine, and, seizing 
it, he read as follows: “We take boat here; wait forme if 
not returned.” 

Mark stood, the paper in his hand, thinking. . There was 
only one boat in the neighborhood, a; canoe belonging to the 
mongrel old hunter, who occasionally went into the swamp. 
Carl must have obtained this in some way; probably the 
mongrel had brought it in by the Branch, or one of its tribu- 
taries, and this was the rendezvous. One comfort — the old 
hunter must then be of the party, too. But why should he, 
Mark, wait, if Carl had two persons with him ? Still, the boy 
had asked. It ended in his waiting. 

He began to prepare for the night. There was a knoll 
near by, and here he made a camp-fire, spending the time 
before sunset in gathering the wood by the slow process of 
climbing the trees and vines, and breaking off dead twigs and 
branches ; everything near the ground was wet and sogged. 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


169 


He planted his four torches, ate his supper, examined his gun 
and revolver, and then, as darkness fell, having nothing else 
to do, he made a plot on the ground with twigs and long 
splinters of light-wood, and played, one hand against the oth- 
er, a swamp game of fox-and-geese. He played standing 
(his fox-and-geese were two feet high), so that he could keep 
a lookout for every sort of creature. There were wild-cats 
and bears in the interior of South Devil, and in the Branch, 
alligators. He did not fear the large creatures, however ; his 
especial guard, as before, was against the silent snakes. He 
lighted the fire and torches early, so that whatever uncanny 
inhabitants there might be in the near trees could have an 
opportunity of coming down and seeking night-quarters else- 
where. He played game after game of fox-and-geese ; and 
this time he sang “ Sweet Afton.” He felt that he had ex- 
hausted the “Troubadour” on the previous occasion. He 
shot five snakes, and saw (or rather it seemed to him that he 
saw) five thousand others coiling and gliding over the roots 
of the cypresses all around. He made a rule not to look at 
them if he could help it, as long as they did not approach. 
“ Otherwise,” he thought, “ I shall lose my senses, and think 
the very trees are squirming.” 

It was a long, long night. The knoll was dented all over 
with holes made by the long splinters representing his fox- 
and-geese. Dizziness was creeping over him at intervals. 
His voice, singing “Sweet Afton,” had become hoarse and 
broken, and his steps uneven, as he moved to and fro, still 
playing the game dully, when at last dawn came. But, al- 
though the flat tops of the great cypresses far above were 
bathed in the golden sunshine, it was long before the radi- 
ance penetrated to the dark glades below. The dank, watery 
aisles were still in gray shadow, when the watcher heard a 
sound — a real sound now, not an imaginary one — and at the 
same moment his glazed eyes saw a boat coming up the 
Branch. It was a white canoe, and paddled by a wraith ; at 
least, the creature who sat within looked so grayly pale, and 


1 7 ° 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


its eyes in its still, white face so large and unearthly, that it 
seemed like a shade returned from the halls of death. 

“ Why, Carl ! ” said Mark, in a loud, unsteady voice, break- 
ing through his own lethargy by main force. “ Its you, Carl, 
isn’t it ? ” 

He tramped down to the water’s edge, each step seeming 
to him a rod long, and now a valley, and now a hill. The 
canoe touched the bank, and Carl fell forward ; not with vio- 
lence, but softly, and without strength. What little conscious- 
ness he had kept was now gone. 

Dawn was coming down from above ; the air was slightly 
stirred. The elder man’s head grew more steady, as he lifted 
his step-brother, gave him brandy, rubbed his temples and 
chest, and then, as he came slowly back to life again, stood 
thinking what he should do. They were a half-day’s journey 
from home, and Carl could not walk. If he attempted to 
carry him, he was fearful that they should not reach pure air 
outside before darkness fell again, and a second night in the 
thick air might be death for both of them ; but there was the 
boat. It had come into South Devil in some way ; by that 
way it should go out again. He laid Carl in one end, putting 
his own coat under his head for a pillow, and then stepped 
in himself, took the paddle, and moved off. Of course he 
must ascend the Branch ; as long as there were no tributa- 
ries, he could not err. But presently he came to an everglade 
— a broadening of the stream with apparently twenty different 
outlets, all equally dark and tangled. He paddled around the 
border, looking first at one, then at another. The matted 
water-vines caught at his boat like hundreds of hands ; the 
great lily-leaves slowly sank and let the light bow glide over 
them. Carl slept ; there was no use trying to rouse him ; but 
probably he would remember nothing, even if awake. The 
elder brother took out his compass, and had decided by it 
which outlet to take, when his eye rested upon the skin of a 
moccasin nailed to a cypress on the other side of the pond. 
It was the mongrel’s way of making a guide-post. Without 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


* 7 * 


hesitation, although the direction was the exact opposite of 
the one he had selected, Deal pushed the canoe across and 
entered the stream thus indicated. At the next pool he found 
another snake-skin ; and so on out of the swamp. Twenty- 
five snakes had died in the cause. He came to firm land at 
noon, two miles from the plantation. Carl was awake now, 
but weak and wandering. Deal lifted him on shore, built a 
fire, heated some meat, toasted corn-bread, and made him 
eat. Then, leaning upon his brother’s arm, walking slowly, 
and often pausing to rest, the blue-eyed ghost reached home 
at sunset — two miles in five hours. 

Ten days now passed ; the mind of the young violin player 
did not regain its poise. He rose and dressed himself each 
morning, and slept in the sunshine as before. He went to the 
place of tombs, carrying his violin, but forgot to play. Instead, 
he sat looking dreamily at the swamp. He said little, and that 
little was disconnected. The only sentence which seemed to 
have meaning, and to be spoken earnestly, was, “ It’s all right, 
old fellow. Just you wait fifteen days — fifteen days ! ” But, 
when Mark questioned him, he could get no definite reply, 
only a repetition of the exhortation to “ wait fifteen days.” 

Deal went over to one of the mongrel’s haunts, and, by 
good luck, found him at home. The mongrel had a number 
of camps, which he occupied according to convenience. The 
old man acknowledged that he had lent his canoe, and that 
he had accompanied Carl and Scip part of the way through 
South Devil. But only part of the way ; then he left them, 
and struck across to the west. Where were they going? 
Why, straight to San Miguel ; the Branch brought them to 
the King’s Road crossing, and the rest of the way they went 
on foot. What were they going to do in San Miguel ? The 
mongrel had no idea ; he had not many ideas. Scip was to 
stay up there ; Brenner was to return alone in the canoe, they 
having made a trail all the way. 

Deal returned to the plantation. He still thought that 
Carl’s idea had been merely to explore the swamp. 


72 


THE SOUTH DEVIL . 


Twelve days had passed, and had grown to fourteen ; 
Carl was no stronger. He was very gentle now, like a sick 
child. Deal was seized with a fear that this soft quiet was 
the peace that often comes before the last to the poor racked 
frame of the consumptive. He gave up all but the necessary 
work, and stayed with Carl all day. The blue-eyed ghost 
smiled, but said little ; into its clouded mind penetrated but 
one ray — “Wait fifteen days.” Mark had decided that 
the sentence meant nothing but some wandering fancy. 
Spring in all her superb luxuriance was now wreathing Flori- 
da with flowers ; the spring flowers met the old flowers, the 
spring leaves met the old leaves. The yellow jessamine 
climbed over miles of thicket ; the myriad purple balls of the 
sensitive-plant starred the ground ; the atamasco lilies grew 
whitely, each one shining all alone, in the wet woods ; choco- 
late-hued orchids nodded, and the rose-colored ones rang 
their bells, at the edge of the barren. The old causeway 
across the sugar waste was blue with violets, and Mark car- 
ried Carl thither ; he would lie there contentedly in the sun- 
shine for hours, his pale fingers toying with the blue blos- 
soms, his eyes lifted to the green line of South Devil across 
the sapphire sky. 

One afternoon he fell asleep there, and Mark left him, to 
cook their dinner. When he came back, his step-brother’s 
eyes had reason in them once more, or rather remembrance. 

“Old fellow,” he said, as Mark, surprised and somewhat 
alarmed at the change, sat down beside him, “ you got me out 
of the swamp, I suppose ? I don’t remember getting myself 
out. Now I want to ask something. I’m going to leave this 
world in a few days, and try it in another ; better luck next 
time, you know. What I want to ask is that you’ll take me 
up and bury me at San Miguel in a little old burying-ground 
they have there, on a knoll overlooking the ocean. I don’t 
want to lie here with the Dons and the Aztecs ; and, besides,' 
I particularly want to be carried through the swamp. Take 
me through in the canoe, as I went the last time; it’s the 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


173 

easiest way, and there’s a trail. And I want to go. And do 
not cover my face, either ; I want to see. Promise.” 

Mark promised, and Carl closed his eyes. Then he roused 
himself again. 

“ Inquire at the post-office in San Miguel for a letter,” he 
said drowsily. “ Promise.” Again Mark promised. He 
seemed to sleep for some minutes ; then he spoke again. 

“ I heard that music, you know — heard it all out plainly 
and clearly,” he said, looking quietly at his brother. " I 
know the whole, and have sung it over to myself a thousand 
times since. I can not write it down now. But it will not be 
lost.” 

“ Music is never lost, I suppose,” answered Mark, some- 
what at random. 

“ Certainly not,” said Carl, with decision. “ My song will 
be heard some time. I’m sure of that. And it will be much 
admired.” 

“ I hope so.” 

“ You try to be kind always, don’t you, old fellow, whether 
you comprehend or not ? ” said the boy, with his old superior 
smile — the smile of the artist, who, although he be a failure 
and a pauper, yet always pities the wise. Then he slept 
again. At dawn, peacefully and with a smile, he died. 

It should not have been expected, perhaps, that he could 
live. But in some way Mark had expected it. 

A few hours later a canoe was floating down the Branch 
through South Devil. One man was paddling at the stem ; 
another was stretched on a couch, with his head on a pillow 
placed at the bow, where he could see the blossoming net- 
work above through his closed eyes. As Carl had said, Scipio 
had left a trail all the way — a broken branch, a bent reed, or 
a shred of cloth tied to the lily-leaves. All through the still 
day they glided on, the canoe moving without a sound on the 
bosom of the dark stream. They passed under the gray and 
solemn cypresses, rising without branches to an enormous 
height, their far foliage hidden by the moss, which hung 


174 


THE SOUTH DEVIL 


down thickly in long flakes, diffusing the sunshine and making 
it silvery like mist ; in the silver swung the air-plants, great 
cream-colored disks, and wands of scarlet, crowded with little 
buds, blossoms that looked like butterflies, and blossoms that 
looked like humming-birds, and little dragon-heads with grin- 
ning faces. Then they came to the region of the palms ; 
these shot up, slender and graceful, and leaned over the 
stream, the great aureum-ferns growing on their trunks high 
in the air. Beneath was a firmer soil than in the domain of 
the cypresses, and here grew a mat of little flowers, each less 
than a quarter of an inch wide, close together, pink, blue, 
scarlet, yellow, purple, but never white, producing a hue sin- 
gularly rich, owing to the absence of that colorless color 
which man ever mingles with his floral combinations, and 
strangely makes sacred alike to the bridal and to death. 
Great vines ran up the palms, knotted themselves, and came 
down again, hand over hand, wreathed in little fresh leaves of 
exquisite green. Birds with plumage of blush-rose pink flew 
slowly by ; also some with scarlet wings, and the jeweled 
paroquets. The great Savannah cranes stood on the shore, 
and did not stir as the boat moved by. And, as the spring 
was now in its prime, the alligators showed their horny heads 
above water, and climbed awkwardly out on the bank; or 
else, swimming by the side of the canoe, accompanied it long 
distances, no doubt moved by dull curiosity concerning its 
means of locomotion, and its ideas as to choice morsels of 
food. The air was absolutely still ; no breeze reached these 
blossoming aisles ; each leaf hung motionless. The atmos- 
phere was hot, and heavy with perfumes. It was the heart of 
the swamp, a riot of intoxicating, steaming, swarming, fra- 
grant, beautiful, tropical life, without man to make or mar it. 
All the world was once so, before man was made. 

Did Deal appreciate this beauty ? He looked at it, be- 
cause he could not get over the feeling that Carl was looking 
at it too ; but he did not admire it. The old New England 
spirit was risil^ within him again at last, after the crushing 


THE SOUTH DEVIL. 


175 

palsy of the polar ice, and the icy looks of a certain blue-eyed 
woman. 

He came out of the swamp an hour before sunset, and, 
landing, lifted his brother in his arms, and started northward 
toward San Miguel. The little city was near ; but the weight 
of a dead body grown cold is strange and mighty, and it was 
late evening before he entered the gate, carrying his motion- 
less burden. He crossed the little plaza, and went into the 
ancient cathedral, laying it down on the chancel-step before 
the high altar. It was the only place he could think of ; and 
he was not repelled. A hanging lamp of silver burned dimly ; 
in a few moments kind hands came to help him. And thus 
Carl, who never went to church in life, went there in death, 
and, with tapers burning at his head and feet, rested all night 
under the picture of the Madonna, with nuns keeping watch 
and murmuring their gentle prayers beside him. 

The next morning he was buried in the dry little burial- 
ground on the knoll overlooking the blue Southern ocean. 

When all was over, Deal, feeling strangely lonely, remem- 
bered his promise, and turned toward the post-office. He ex- 
pected nothing ; it was only one of the poor lad’s fancies ; 
still, he would keep his word. There was nothing for him. 

He went out. Then an impulse made him turn back and 
ask if there was a letter for Carl. “ For Carl Brenner,” he 
said, and thought how strange it was that there was now no 
Carl. There was a letter ; he put it into his pocket and left 
the town, going homeward by the King’s Road on foot ; the 
South Devil should see him no more. He slept part of the 
night by the roadside, and reached home the next morning ; 
everything was as he had left it. He made a fire and boiled 
some coffee ; then he set the little house in order, loaded his 
gun, and went out mechanically after game. The routine of 
daily life had begun again. 

“ It’s a pleasant old place,” he said to himself, as he went 
through one of the orange-aisles and saw the wild oranges 
dotting the ground with their golden color. “4t’s a pleasant 


176 


THE SOUTH DEVIL . 


old place,” he repeated, as he went out into the hot, still sun- 
shine beyond. He filled his game-bag, and sat down to rest 
a while before returning. Then for the first time he remem- 
bered the letter, and drew it forth. This was the letter Carl 
meant ; Carl asked him to get it after he was dead ; he must 
have intended, then, that he, Mark, should read it. He 
opened it, and looked at the small, slanting handwriting with- 
out recognizing it. Then from the inside a photograph fell 
out, and he took it up ; it was Leeza. On the margin was 
written, “ For Mark.” 

She had written ; but, womanlike, not, as Carl expected, 
to Mark. Instead, she had written to Carl, and commissioned 
him to tell Mark — what ? Oh, a long story, such as girls tell, 
but with the point that, after all, she “ liked ” (liked ?) Mark 
best. Carl’s letter had been blunt, worded with unflattering 
frankness. Leeza was tired of her own coquetries, lonely, and 
poor ; she wrote her foolish little apologizing, confessing letter 
with tears in her blue eyes — those blue eyes that sober, reti- 
cent Mark Deal could not forget. 

Carl had gone to San Miguel, then, to mail a letter — a 
letter which had brought this answer ! Mark, with his face 
in his hands, thanked God that he had not spoken one harsh 
word to the boy for what had seemed obstinate disobedience, 
but had tended him gently to the last. 

Then he rose, stretched his arms, drew a long breath, and 
looked around. Everything seemed altered. The sky was 
brassy, the air an oven. He remembered the uplands where 
the oats grew, near Exton ; and his white sand-furrows 
seemed a ghastly mockery of fields. He went homeward and 
drew water from his well to quench his burning thirst ; it was 
tepid, and he threw it away, recalling as he did so the spring 
under the cool, brown rocks where he drank when a boy. A 
sudden repugnance came over him when his eyes fell on the 
wild oranges lying on the ground, over-ripe with rich, pulpy 
decay ; he spumed them aside with his foot, and thought of 
the firm apples in the old orchard, a fruit cool and reticent, a 


THE SOUTH DEVIL . 


1 77 


little hard, too, not giving itself to the first comer. Then there 
came over him the hue of Northern forests in spring, the late, 
reluctant spring of Exton ; and the changeless olive-green of 
the pine barrens grew hideous in his eyes. But, most of all, 
there seized him a horror of the swamp — a horror of its hot 
steaming air, and its intoxicating perfume, which reached him 
faintly even where he stood ; it seemed to him that if he staid 
long within their reach his brain would be affected as Carls 
had been, and that he should wander within and die. F or 
there would be no one to rescue him. 

So strong was this new feeling, like a giant full armed, 
that he started that very night, carrying his gun and Carl’s 
violin, and a knapsack of clothes on his back, and leaving his 
other possessions behind. Their value was not great, but 
they made a princely home for the mongrel, who came over 
after he had departed, looked around stealthily, stole several 
small articles, and hastened away ; came back again after a 
day or two, and stole a little more ; and finally, finding the 
place deserted, brought back all his spoil and established 
himself there permanently, knowing full well that it would be 
long before Monteano’s would find another tenant from the 
North. 

As Mark Deal passed across the King’s Road Bridge over 
the Branch (now soon to be sainted), he paused, and looked 
down into the north border of South Devil. Then he laid 
aside his gun and the violin, went off that way, and gathered 
a large bunch of swamp blossoms. Coming into San Miguel, 
he passed through the town and out to the little burial-ground 
beyond. Here he found the new-made grave, and laid the 
flowers upon it. 

“ He will like them because they come from there," was 
his thought. 

Then, with a buoyant step, he started up the long, low, 
white peninsula, set with its olive-woods in a sapphire sea ; 
and his face was turned northward. 


IN THE COTTON COUNTRY, 


The loveliest land that smiles beneath the sky, 

The coast-land of our western Italy. 

I view the waters quivering ; quaff the breeze. 

Whose briny raciness keeps an under taste 
Of flavorous tropic sweets, perchance swept home 
From Cuba’s perfumed groves and garden spiceries. 

Paul Hamilton Hayne. 

Call on thy children of the hill, 

Wake swamp and river, coast and rill, 

Rouse all thy strength, and all thy skill, 

Carolina ! 

Tell how the patriot’s soul was tried. 

And what his dauntless breast defied ; 

How Rutledge ruled and Laurens died, 

Carolina ! 

Henry Timrod. 


Do you know the cotton country — the country of broad 
levels open to the sun, where the ungainly, ragged bushes 
stand in long rows, bearing the clothing of a nation on their 
backs ? Not on their backs either, for the white wool is scat- 
tered over the branches and twigs, looking, not as if it grew 
there, but as if it had been blown that way, and had caught 
and clung at random. When I first came to the cotton coun- 
try, I used to stand with my chin on the top-rail of the fences, 
trying to rid my eyes of that first impression. I saw the fields 
only when the cotton was white, when there were no green 
leaves left, and the fleecy down did not seem to me a vege- 
table at all. Starved cows passed through the half-plucked 
rows untempted, and I said to myself : “ Of course. Cows 
do not eat cotton any more than they eat wool ; but what 


IN THE COTTON COUNTRY. 


79 


bush is there at the North that they would not nibble if starv- 
ing ? ” Accustomed to the trim, soldierly ranks of the West- 
ern corn-fields, or the billowy grace of the wheat, I could 
think of nothing save a parade of sturdy beggarmen unwill- 
ingly drawn up in line, when I gazed upon the stubborn, un- 
even branches, and generally lop-sided appearance of these 
plants — plants, nevertheless, of wealth, usefulness, and his- 
toric importance in the annals of our land. But after a while 
I grew accustomed to their contrary ways, and I even began 
to like their defiant wildness, as a contrast, perhaps, to the 
languorous sky above, the true sky of the cotton country, with 
its soft heat, its hazy air, and its divine twilight that lingers so 
long. I always walked abroad at sunset, and it is in the sun- 
set-light that I always see the fields now when far away. No 
doubt there was plenty of busy, prosaic reality down there in 
the mornings, but I never saw it ; I only saw the beauty and 
the fancies that come with the soft after-glow and the shadows 
of the night. 

Down in the cotton country the sun shines steadily all day 
long, and the earth is hot under your feet. There are few 
birds, but at nightfall the crows begin to fly home in a long 
line, going down into the red west as though they had im- 
portant messages to deliver to some imprisoned princess on 
the edge of the horizon. One day I followed the crows. I 
said to myself : “ The princess is a ruse ; they probably light 
not far from here, and I am going to find their place. The 
crows at home — that would be something worth seeing.” 
Turning from the path, I went westward. “ What ! ” said a 
country-woman, meeting Wordsworth on the road, ‘‘are ye 
stepping westward, sir ? ” I, too, stepped westward. 

Field after field I crossed ; at last the fences ceased, and 
only old half-filled ditches marked the boundary-lines. The 
land sloped downward slightly, and after a while the ridge 
behind me seemed like a line of heights, the old cotton-plants 
on its top standing out as distinctly as single pine-trees on a 
mountain-summit outlined against the sky ; so comparative is 


lBo 


IN THE COTTON COUNTRY . 


height. The crows still flew westward as I came out upon a 
second level lower down than the first, and caught a golden 
gleam through the fringe of bushes in the middle of the plain. 
I had unwittingly found the river at last, that broad, brown 
river that I knew was down there somewhere, although I had 
not seen it with my bodily eyes. I had full knowledge of 
what it was, though, farther south toward the ocean ; I knew 
the long trestles over the swamps and dark canebrakes that 
stretched out for miles on each side of the actual stream — 
trestles over which the trains passed cautiously every day, the 
Northern passengers looking nervously down at the quaking, 
spongy surface below, and prophesying accidents as certain 
some time — when they were not on board. Up here in the 
cotton country, however, the river was more docile ; there 
were no tides to come up and destroy the banks, and with the 
exception of freshets the habits of the stream were orderly. 
The levels on each side might have been, should have been, 
rich with plenty. Instead, they were uncultivated and deso- 
late. Here and there a wild, outlawed cotton-bush reared its 
head, and I could trace the old line of the cart-road and cross- 
tracks ; but the soil was spongy and disintegrated, and for a 
long time evidently no care had been bestowed upon it. I 
crossed over to the river, and found that the earth-bank which 
had protected the field was broken down and washed away in 
many places ; the low trees and bushes on shore still held the 
straws and driftwood that showed the last freshet’s high- 
water mark. 

The river made an. irregular bend a short distance below, 
and I strolled that way, walking now on the thick masses of 
lespedeza that carpeted the old road-track, and now on the 
singularly porous soil of the level, a soil which even my inex- 
perienced eyes recognized as worthless, all its good particles 
having been drained out of it and borne away on the trium- 
phant tide of the freshets. The crows still evaded me, cross- 
ing the river in a straight line and flying on toward the west, 
and, in that arbitrary way in which solitary pedestrians make 


IN THE COTTON COUNTRY. 


1 8 1 


compacts with themselves, I said, “ I will go to that tree at 
the exact turn of the bend, and not one step farther.” I 
went to that tree at the exact turn of the bend, and then I 
went — farther ; for I found there one solemn, lonely old house. 
Now, if there had been two, I should not have gone on ; I 
should not have broken my compact. Two houses are so- 
ciable and commonplace ; but one all alone on a desolate 
waste like that inspired me with — let us call it interest, and I 
went forward. 

It was a lodge rather than a house ; in its best day it could 
never have been more than a very plain abode, and now, in its 
worst, it seemed to have fallen into the hands of Giant De- 
spair. “ Forlorn ” was written over its lintels, and “ without 
hope ” along its low roof-edge. Raised high above the 
ground, in the Southern fashion, on wooden supports, it 
seemed even more unstable than usual to Northern eyes, be- 
cause the lattice-work, the valance, as it were, which generally 
conceals the bare, stilt-like underpinning, was gone, and a 
thin calf and some melancholy chickens were walking about 
underneath, as though the place was an arbor. There was a 
little patch of garden, but no grass, no flowers; everything 
was gray, the unpainted house, the sand of the garden-beds, 
and the barren waste stretching away on all sides. At first I 
thought the place was uninhabited, but as I drew nearer a 
thin smoke from one of the chimneys told of life within, and 
I said to myself that the life would be black-skinned life, of 
course. For I was quite accustomed now to finding the fami- 
lies of the freedmen crowded into just such old houses as 
this, hidden away in unexpected places ; for the freedmen 
hardly ever live up on the even ground in the broad sunshine 
as though they had a right there, but down in the hollows or 
out into the fringes of wood, where their low-roofed cabins, 
numerous though they may be, are scarcely visible to the 
passer-by. There was no fence around this house ; it stood 
at large on the waste as though it belonged there. Take 
away the fence from a house, and you take away its respecta- 


182 


IN THE COTTON COUNTRY. 


bility ; it becomes at once an outlaw. I ascended the crazy, 
sunken steps that led to the front door, and lifted the knocker 
that hung there as if in mockery; who ever knocked there 
now save perhaps a river-god with his wet fingers as he hur- 
ried by, mounted on the foaming freshet, to ravage and lay 
waste again the poor, desolate fields ? But no spirit came to 
the door, neither came the swarm of funny little black faces I 
had expected ; instead, I saw before me a white woman, tall, 
thin, and gray-haired. Silently she stood there, her great, 
dark eyes, still and sad, looking at me as much as to say, 
“ By what right are you here ? ” 

“ Excuse me, madam,” was my involuntary beginning ; 
then I somewhat stupidly asked for a glass of water. 

“ I would not advise you to drink the water we have here ; 
it is not good,” replied the woman. I knew it was not ; the 
water is never good down on the levels. But I was very stu- 
pid that day. 

“ I should like to rest a while,” was my next attempt. It 
brought out a wooden chair, but no cordiality. I tried every- 
thing I could think of in the way of subjects for conversation, 
but elicited no replies beyond monosyllables. I could not 
very well say, “ Who are you, and how came you here ? ” and 
yet that was exactly what I wanted to know. The woman’s 
face baffled me; and I do not like to be baffled. It was a face 
that was old and at the same time young ; it had deep lines, 
it was colorless, and the heavy hair was gray ; and still I felt 
that it was not old in years, but that it was like the peaches 
we find sometimes on the ground, old, wrinkled, and withered, 
yet showing here and there traces of that evanescent bloom 
which comes before the ripeness. The eyes haunted me; 
they haunt me now, the dry, still eyes of immovable, hopeless 
grief. I thought, “ Oh, if I could only help her ! ” but all I 
said was, “ I fear I am keeping you standing ” ; for that is the 
senseless way we human creatures talk to each other. 

Her answer was not encouraging. 

“ Yes,” she replied, in her brief way, and said no more. 


IN THE COTTON COUNTRY . 


83 


I felt myself obliged to go. 

But the next afternoon I wandered that way again, and 
the next, and the next. I used to wait impatiently for the 
hour when I could enter into the presence of her great silence. 
How still she was ! If she had wept, if she had raved, if she 
had worked with nervous energy, or been resolutely, doggedly 
idle, if she had seemed reckless, or callous, or even pious ; 
but no, she was none of these. Her old-young face was ever 
the same, and she went about her few household tasks in a 
steady, nerveless manner, as though she could go on doing 
them for countless ages, and yet never with the least increase 
of energy. She swept the room, for instance, every day, never 
thoroughly, but in a gentle, incompetent sort of way peculiarly 
her own ; yet she always swept it and never neglected it, and 
she took as much time to do it as though the task was to be 
performed with microscopic exactness. 

She lived in her old house alone save for the presence of 
one child, a boy of six or seven years — a quiet, grave-eyed 
little fellow, who played all by himself hour after hour with 
two little wooden soldiers and an empty spool. He seldom 
went out, of the house ; he did not seem to care for the sun- 
shine or the open air as other children care, but gravely 
amused himself in-doors in his own quiet way. He did not 
make his wooden soldiers talk or demolish each other trium- 
phantly, according to the manner of boys ; but he marshaled 
them to and fro with slow consideration, and the only sound 
was the click of their little muskets as he moved them about. 
He seemed never to speak of his own accord ; he was strange- 
ly silent always. I used to wonder if the two ever talked to- 
gether playfully as mother and child should talk; and one 
day, emboldened by a welcome, not warmer, for it was never 
warm, but not quite so cold perhaps, I said : 

“ Your little son is very quiet, madam." 

“ He is not my son." 

“ Ah ! " I replied, somewhat disconcerted. “ He is a pretty 
child ; what is his name ? " 


184 


IN THE COTTON COUNTRY. 


“ His name is John.” 

The child heard us in his barren corner, but did not look 
up or speak ; he made his two soldiers advance solemnly upon 
the spool in silence, with a flank movement. I have called 
the corner barren, because it seemed doubly so when the boy 
sat there. The poorest place generally puts on something of 
a homelike air when a little child is in it ; but the two bare 
walls and angle of bare floor remained hopelessly empty and 
desolate. The room was large, but there was nothing in it 
save the two wooden chairs and a table ; there was no wo- 
manly attempt at a rag-carpet, curtains for the windows, or 
newspaper pictures for the walls — none of those little con- 
trivances for comfort with which women generally adorn even 
the most miserable abiding-places, showing a kind of courage 
which is often pathetic in its hopefulness. Here, however, 
there was nothing. A back-room held a few dishes, some 
boxes and barrels, and showed on its cavernous hearth the 
ashes of a recent fire. “ I suppose they sleep in a third bare 
room somewhere, with their two beds, no doubt, standing all 
alone in the center of the chamber ; for it would be too hu- 
man, of course, to put them up snugly against the wall, as 
anybody else would do,” I said to myself. 

In time I succeeded in building up a sort of friendship 
with this solitary woman of the waste, and in time she told 
me her story. Let me tell it to you. I have written stories 
of imagination, but this is a story of fact, and I want you to 
believe it. It is true, every word of it, save the names given, 
and, when you read it, you whose eyes are now upon these 
lines, stop and reflect that it is only one of many life-sto- 
ries like unto it. “ War is cruelty,” said our great general. 
It is. It must be so. But shall we not, we women, like Sis- 
ters of Charity, go over the field when the battle is done, 
bearing balm and wine and oil for those who suffer ? 

“ Down here in the cotton country we were rich once, 
madam ; w^g were richer than Northerners ever are, for we 
toiled not for our money, neither took thought for it ; it came 


IN THE COTTON COUNTRY. 


185 


and we spent it ; that was all. My father was Clayton Cotes- 
worth, and our home was twenty miles from here, at the 
Sand Hills. Our cotton-lands were down on these river- 
levels ; this was one of our fields, and this house was built 
for the overseer ; the negro-quarters that stood around it have 
been carried off piecemeal by the freedmen.” (Impossible to 
put on paper her accentuation of this title.) . “ My father was 
an old man ; he could not go to battle himself, but he gave 
first his eldest son, my brother James. James went away 
from earth at Fredericksburg. It was in the winter, and veiy 
cold. How often have I thought of that passage, ‘ And pray 
ye that your flight be not in the winter,’ when picturing his 
sufferings before his spirit took flight ! Yes, it was very cold 
for our Southern boys ; the river was full of floating ice, and 
the raw wind swept over them as they tried to throw up in- 
trenchments on the heights. They had no spades, only pointed 
sticks, and the ground was frozen hard. Their old uniforms, 
worn thin by hard usage, hung in tatters, and many of them 
had no shoes ; the skin of their poor feet shone blue, or glis- 
tening white, like a dead man’s skin, through the coverings of 
rags they made for themselves as best they could. They say 
it was a pitiful sight to see the poor fellows sitting down in 
the mornings, trying to adjust these rag-wrappings so that 
they would stay in place, and fastening them elaborately with 
their carefully saved bits of string. He was an honored man 
who invented a new way. My brother* was one of the shoe- 
less ; at the last, too, it seems that he had no blanket, only a 
thin counterpane. When night came, hungry and tired as he 
was, he could only wrap himself in that and lie down on the 
cold ground to wait for morning. When we heard all this 
afterward, we said, * Blessed be the bullet that put him out of 
his misery ! ’ for poor James was a delicate boy, and had been 
accustomed to loving, watchful care all his life. Yet, oh, if I 
could only know that he was warm once, just once, before he 
died ! They told us he said nothing after he war shot save 
* How cold ! How cold ! ’ They put his poor, stiff body has- 


1 86 


IN THE COTTON COUNTRY. 


tily down under the sod, and then the brigade moved on ; ‘no 
man knoweth his sepulchre unto this day.’ 

“ Next John went, my second brother. He said good-by, 
and marched away northward — northward, northward, always 
northward — to cold, corpse-strewed Virginia, who cried aloud 
to us continually, * More ! more ! ’ Her roads are marked 
with death from her Peaks of Otter to the sea, and her great 
valley ran red. We went to her from all over the South, from 
Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, and from our own Carolina. 
We died there by thousands, and by tens of thousands. O 
Virginia, our dead lie thick in thy tidewater plains, in thy 
tangled Wilderness, and along thy river-shores, with faces up- 
turned, and hearts still for ever. 

“ John came back to us once, and wedded the fair girl to 
whom he was betrothed. It was a sad bridal, although we 
made it as gay as we could ; for we had come to the times of 
determined gayety then. The tone of society was like the 
determinedly gay quicksteps which the regimental bands play 
when returning from a funeral, as much as to say, ‘ Le roi est 
mort, vive le roi ! ’ So we turned our old silk dresses, and made 
a brave appearance ; if our shoes were shabby, we hid them 
under our skirts as well as we could, and held our heads the 
higher. Maum Sally made a big wedding-cake, as of old, 
and we went without meat to pay for the spices in it ; such 
luxuries we obtained from the blockade-runners now and then, 
but they were worth almost their weight in gold. Then John, 
too, left us. In four months he also was taken — killed by 
guerrillas, it is supposed, as he rode through a lonely moun- 
tain-defile. He was not found for weeks ; the snow fell and 
covered him, mercifully giving the burial the frozen earth de- 
nied. After a while the tidings came to us, and poor Mabel 
slowly wept herself into the grave. She was a loving-hearted 
little creature, and her life was crushed. She looked at her 
baby once, called his name John, and then died. The child, 
that boy yonder, seems to have inherited her grief. He sheds 
no tears, however; his girl-mother shed them all, both for 


IN THE COTTON COUNTRY. 187 

him and for herself, before ever he saw the light. My turn 
came next. 

“ You have been married, madam ? Did you love, too ? I 
do not mean regard, or even calm affection ; I do not mean 
sense of duty, self-sacrifice, or religious goodness. I mean 
love — love that absorbs the entire being. Some women love 
so ; I do not say they are the happiest women. I do not say 
they are the best. I am one of them. But God made us all ; 
he gave us our hearts — we did not choose them. Let no wo- 
man take credit to herself for her even life, simply because it 
has been even. Doubtless, if he had put her out in the 
breakers, she would have swayed too. Perhaps she would 
have drifted from her moorings also, as I have drifted. I go 
to no church ; I can not pray. But do not think I am defiant ; 
no, I am only dead. I seek not the old friends, few and ruined, 
who remain still above-ground ; I have no hope, I might al- 
most say no wish. Torpidly I draw my breath through day 
and night, nor care if the rain falls or the sun shines. You 
Northern women would work ; I can not. Neither have I 
the courage to take the child and die. I live on as the palsied 
animal lives, and if some day the spring fails, and the few 
herbs within his reach, he dies. Nor do I think he grieves 
much about it ; he only eats from habit. So I. 

“ It was in the third year of the war that I met Ralph 
Kinsolving. I was just eighteen. Our courtship was short ; 
indeed, I hardly knew that I loved him until he spoke and 
asked me to give him myself. ‘ Marry me, Judith,’ he pleaded 
ardently ; ‘ marry me before I go ; let it be my wife I leave 
behind me, and not my sweetheart. For sweethearts, dear, 
can not come to us in camp when we send, as we shall surely 
send soon, that you may all see our last grand review.’ So 
spoke Rafe, and with all his heart he believed it. We all be- 
lieved it. Never for a moment did we doubt the final triumph 
of our arms. We were so sure we were right ! 

“ ‘ Our last grand review,’ said Rafe ; but he did not dream 
of that last review at Appomattox, when eight thousand hun- 


1 88 


IN THE COTTON COUNTRY. 


gry, exhausted men stacked their muskets in the presence of 
the enemy, whose glittering ranks, eighty thousand strong, 
were drawn up in line before them, while in the rear their 
well-filled wagons stood — wagons whose generous plenty 
brought tears to t.he eyes of many a poor fellow that day, 
thinking, even while he eagerly ate, of his desolated land, and 
his own empty fields at home. 

“ I did marry my soldier, and, although it was in haste, I 
had my wedding-dress, my snowy veil ; lace and gauze were 
not needed at the hospitals! But we went without the 
wedding-cake this time, and my satin slippers were made at 
home, looking very like a pair of white moccasins when fin- 
ished. 

“ In the middle of the ceremony there was an alarm ; the 
slaves had risen at Latto’s down the river, and were coming 
to the village armed with clubs, and, worse still, infuriated 
with liquor they had found. Even our good old rector paused. 
There were but few white men at home. It seemed indeed a 
time for pausing. But Rafe said, quietly, ‘ Go on ! ’ and, un- 
sheathing his sword, he laid it ready on the chancel-rail. ‘To 
have and to hold, from this day forward, for better for worse, 
for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to 
cherish, till death us do part,’ repeated Rafe, holding my hand 
in his firm clasp, and looking down into my frightened face so 
tenderly that I forgot my alarm — everything, indeed, save his 
love. But when the last word was spoken, and the blessing 
pronounced over our bowed heads, the shining sword seeming 
a silent witness, Rafe left me like a flash. The little church 
was empty when I rose from my knees ; the women had hur- 
ried home with blanched faces to bar their doors and barri- 
cade their windows, and the men had gone for their horses 
and guns ; only my old father waited to give me his blessing, 
and then we, too, hastened homeward. Our little band of 
defenders assembled in the main street, and rode gallantly 
out to meet the negroes, who were as fifty to their one. Rafe 
was the leader, by virtue of his uniform, and he waved his 


IN THE COTTON COUNTRY . 


189 

hand to me as he rode by. ‘ Cheer up, Judith,’ he cried ; ‘ I 
will soon return.’ 

“ I never saw him again. 

“ They dispersed the negroes without much difficulty ; 
Latto’s slaves had been badly treated for months, they had 
not the strength to fight long. But Rafe rode to the next 
town with the prisoners under his charge, and there he met 
an imploring summons to the coast; the Federal ships had 
appeared unexpectedly off the hax'bor, and the little coast-city 
lay exposed and helpless at the mouth of the river. All good 
men and true within reach were summoned to the defense. 
So my soldier went, sending back word to me a second time, 

‘ I will soon return.’ But the siege was long, long — one of 
those bitterly contested little sieges of minor importance, with 
but small forces engaged on each side, which were so numer- 
ous during the middle times of the war — those middle times 
after the first high hopes had been disappointed, and before 
the policy of concentration had been adopted by the North — 
that slow, dogged North of yours that kept going back and 
beginning over again, until at last it found out how to do it. 
This little siege was long and weary, and when at last the 
Federal vessels went suddenly out beyond the bar again, and 
the town, unconquered, but crippled and suffering, lay ex- 
hausted on the shore, there was not much cause for rejoic- 
ing. Still I rejoiced ; for I thought that Rafe would come. 

I did not know that his precious furlough had expired while 
he was shut up in the beleaguered city, and that his colo- 
nel had sent an imperative summons, twice repeated. Honor, 
loyalty, commanded him to go, and go immediately. He- 
went. 

“ The next tidings that came to me brought word that he 
loved me and was well ; the next, that he loved me and was 
well ; the next, that he loved me and was — dead. Madam, 
my husband, Ralph Kinsolving, was shot — as a spy ! 

"You start — you question — you doubt. But spies were 
shot in those days, were they not ? That is a matter of his- 


190 


IN THE COTTON COUNTRY. 


tory. Very well ; you are face to face now with the wife of 
one of them. 

“ You did not expect such an ending, did you ? You have 
always thought of spies as outcasts, degraded wretches, and, 
if you remembered their wives at all, it was with the idea that 
they had not much feeling, probably, being so low down in 
the scale of humanity. But, madam, in those bitter, hurrying 
days men were shot as spies who were no spies. Nay, let 
me finish ; I know quite well that the shooting was not con- 
fined to one side ; I acknowledge that ; but it was done, and 
mistakes were made. Now and then chance brings a case to 
light, so unmistakable in its proof that those who hear it 
shudder — as now and then also chance brings a coffin to light 
whose occupant was buried alive, and came to himself when 
it was too late. But what of the cases that chance does not 
bring to light ? 

“ My husband was no spy ; but it had been a trying time 
for the Northern commanders : suspicion lurked everywhere ; 
the whole North clamored to them to advance, and yet their 
plans, as fast as they made them, were betrayed in some way 
to the enemy. An example was needed — my husband fell in 
the way. 

“ He explained the suspicious circumstances of his case, 
but a cloud of witnesses rose up against him, and he proudly 
closed his lips. They gave him short shrift ; that same day 
he was led out and met his death in the presence of thou- 
sands. They told me that he was quite calm, and held him- 
self proudly ; at the last he turned his face to the south, as if 
he were gazing down, down, into the very heart of that land 
for whose sake he was about to die. I think he saw the cot- 
ton-fields then, and our home ; I think he saw me, also, for 
the last time. 

“ By the end of that year, madam, my black hair was gray, 
as you see it now ; I was an old woman at nineteen. 

“ My father and I and that grave-eyed baby lived on in 
the old house. Our servants had left us, all save one, old 


i9i 


IN THE COTTON COUNTRY . 

Cassy, who had been my nurse or ‘maumee,’ as we called 
her. We suffered, of course. We lived as very poor people 
live. The poorest slaves in the old time had more than we 
had then. But we did not murmur ; the greater griefs had 
swallowed up the less. I said, ‘ Is there any sorrow like unto 
my sorrow ? ’ But the end was not yet. 

“ You have heard the story of the great march, the march 
to the sea ? But there was another march after that, a march 
of which your own writers have said that its route was marked 
by a pillar of smoke by day and of flame by night — the march 
through South Carolina. The Northern soldiers shouted 
when they came to the yellow tide of the Savannah, and 
looked across and knew that the other shore was South Caro- 
lina soil. They crossed, and Carolina was bowed to the dust. 
Those were the days we cried in the morning, ‘ O God, that 
it were night ! ’ and in the night, ‘ O God, that it were morn- 
ing ! ’ Retribution, do you say ? It may be so. But love 
for our State seemed loyalty to us ; and slavery was the sin 
of our fathers, not ours. Surely we have expiated it now. 

“ ‘ Chile, chile, dey is come ! ’ cried old Cassy, bursting into 
my room one afternoon, her withered black face grayly pale 
with fear. I went out. Cavalrymen were sweeping the vil- 
lage of all it contained, the meager little that was left to us in 
our penury. My father was asleep ; how I prayed that he 
might not waken ! Although an old man, he was fiery as 
a boy, and proudly, passionately rebellious against the fate 
which had come upon us. Our house was some distance 
back from the road, and broad grounds separated us from 
the neighboring residences. Cassy and I softly piled our pil- 
lows and cushions against the doors and windows that opened! 
from his room to the piazza, hoping to deaden the sounds' 
outside, for some of our people were resisting, and now andj 
then I heard shouts and oaths. But it was of no use. My 
dear old father woke, heard the sounds, and rushed out into 
the street sword in hand ; for he had been a soldier too, serv- 
ing with honor through the Mexican War. Made desperate 


192 


IN THE COTTON COUNTRY. 


by my fears for him, I followed. There was a mille in the 
road before our house ; a high wind blew the thick dust in 
my eyes and half blinded me, so that I only saw struggling 
forms on foot and on horseback, and could not distinguish 
friend or foe. Into this group my father rushed. I never knew 
the cause of the contest ; probably it was an ill-advised attack 
by some of our people, fiery and reasonless always. But, 
whatever it was, at length there came one, two, three shots, 
and then the group broke apart. I rushed forward and re- 
ceived my old father in my arms, dying — dead. His head lay 
on my shoulder as I knelt in the white road, and his silver 
hair was dabbled with blood ; he had been shot through the 
head and breast, and lived but a moment. 

“We carried him back to the house, old Cassy and I, 
slowly, and with little regard for the bullets which now 
whistled through the air ; for the first shots had brought to- 
gether the scattered cavalrymen, who now rode through the 
streets firing right and left, more at random, I think, than 
with direct aim, yet still determined to * frighten the rebels,’ 
and avenge the soldier, one of their number, who had been 
killed at the beginning of the fray. We laid my father down 
in the center of the hall, and prepared him for his long sleep. 
No one came to help us ; no one came to sorrow with us ; 
each household gathered its own together and waited with 
bated breath for what was still to come. I watched alone 
beside my dead that night, the house-doors stood wide open, 
and lights burned at the head and foot of the couch. I said 
to myself, ‘ Let them come now and take their fill.’ But no 
one disturbed me, and I kept my vigil from midnight until 
dawn ; then there came a sound of many feet, and when the 
sun rose our streets were full of blue-coated soldiers, thou- 
sands upon thousands ; one wing of the great army was march- 
ing through. There was still hot anger against us for our 
resistance, and when the commanding officers arrived they 
ordered guards to be stationed at every house, with orders to 
shoot any man or boy who showed himself outside of his 


IN THE COTTON COUNTRY. 


193 


doorway. All day and night the Federal soldiers would be 
passing through, and the guards gave notice that if another 
man Avas injured twenty rebel lives should answer for it. 

‘“We must bury my father, you and I together, Cassy,’ 
I said ; ‘ there is no one to help us. Come ! * 

“ The old woman followed me without a word. Had I 
bidden her go alone, even as far as the door-step, she would 
have cowered at my feet in abject terror ; but, following me, 
she would have gone unquestioning to the world’s end. The 
family burial-place was on our own grounds, according to 
the common custom of the South ; thither we turned our 
steps, and in silence hollowed out a grave as best we could. 
The guard near by watched us with curiosity for some time ; 
at last he approached : 

“ ‘ What are you two women doing there ? * 

“ ‘ Digging a grave.’ 

“ * For whom ? ’ 

“ ‘ For my father, who lies dead in the house.’ 

“ He withdrew a short distance, but still watched us closely, 
and when all was ready, and we returned to the house for our 
burden, I saw him signal the next guard. * They will not 
interrupt us,’ I said; ‘we are only two women and a dead 
man.’ 

“ I wrapped my dear father in his cloak, and covered his 
face ; then we bore the lounge on which he lay out into the 
sunshine down toward the open grave. The weight of this 
poor frame of ours when dead is marvelous, and we moved 
slowly ; but at length we reached the spot. I had lined the 
grave with coverlids and a fine linen sheet, and now, with the 
aid of blankets, we lowered the clay to its last resting-place. 
Then, opening my prayer-book, I read aloud the service for 
the burial of the dead, slowly, and without tears, for I was 
thinking of the meeting above of the old father and his two 
boys : ‘ Lord, thou hast been our refuge from one generation 
to another. Before the mountains were brought forth, or 
ever the earth and the world were made, thou art God from 

9 


194 


IN THE COTTON COUNTRY. 


everlasting.’ I took a clod and cast it upon the shrouded 
breast below. ‘ Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,’ 
I said, and old Cassy, kneeling opposite, broke forth into low 
wailing, and rocked her body to and fro. Then we filled the 
grave. I remember that I worked with feverish strength ; if 
it was not done quickly, I knew I could never do it at all. 
Can you realize what it would be to stand and shovel the 
earth with your own hands upon your dead ? — to hear the 
gravel fall and strike ?— to see the last shrouded outline dis- 
appear ui\der the stifling, heavy clods ? All this it was mine 
to do. When it was over I turned to go, and for the first 
time lifted my eyes. There at the fence-comer stood a row 
of Federal soldiers, silent, attentive, and with bared heads; 
my father was buried with military honors after all. 

“ During all that day and night the blue-coated ranks 
marched by ; there seemed to be no end to the line of glitter- 
ing muskets. I watched them passively, holding the orphan- 
boy on my knee ; I felt as though I should never move or 
speak again. But after the army came the army-followers 
and stragglers, carrion-birds who flew behind the conquerors 
and devoured what they had left. They swept the town clean 
of food and raiment ; many houses they wantonly burned ; 
what they could not carry with them they destroyed. My 
own home did not escape : rude men ransacked every closet 
and drawer, and cut in ribbons the old portraits on the wall. 
A German, coming in from the smoke-house, dripping with 
bacon-juice, wiped his hands upon my wedding-veil, which 
had been discovered and taken from its box by a former in- 
truder. It was a little thing ; but, oh, how it hurt me ! At 
length the last straggler left us, and we remained in the ashes. 
We could not sit down and weep for ourselves and for our 
dead ; the care of finding wherewithal to eat thrust its coarse 
necessity upon us, and forced us to our feet. I had thought 
that all the rest of my life would be but a bowed figure at the 
door of a sepulchre ; but the camp-followers came by, took 
the bowed figure by the arm, and forced it back to every-day 


IN THE COTTON COUNTRY. 


95 


life. We could no longer taste the luxury of tears. For days 
our people lived on the refuse left by the army, the bits of 
meat and bread they had thrown aside from their plenty ; we 
picked up the com with which they had fed their horses, ker- 
nel by kernel, and boiled it for our dinner ; we groped in the 
ashes of their camp-fires ; little children learned the sagacity 
of dogs seeking for bones, and quarreled over their findings. 
The fortune of war, do you say ? Yes, the fortune of war ! 
But it is one thing to say, and another thing to feel ! 

“We came away, madam, for our home was in ashes — old 
Cassy, the child, and I ; we came on foot to this place, and 
here we have staid.* No, the fields are never cultivated now. 
The dike has been broken down in too many places, and 
freshets have drained all the good out of the soil ; the land is 
worthless. It was once my father’s richest field. Yes, Cassy 
is dead. She was buried by her own people, who forgave her 
at the last for having been so spiritless as to stay with ' young 
missis,' when she might have tasted the glories of freedom 
over in the crowded hollow where the blacks were enjoying 
themselves and dving by the score. In six months half of 
them were gone, f They had their freedom — oh, yes, plenty of 
it ; they were quite free — to die ! For, you see, madam, their 
masters, those villainous old masters of theirs, were no longer 
there to feed and clothe them. NOh ! it was a great deliver- 
ance for the enfranchised people ! Bitter, am I ? Put your- 
self in my place. 

“ What am I going to do ? Nothing. The boy ? He 
must take his chances. Let him grow up under the new 
rlgime ; I have told him nothing of the old. It may be that 
he will prosper ; people do prosper, they tell me. It seems 
we were wrong, all wrong ; then we must be very right now, 
for the blacks are our judges, councilors, postmasters, repre- 
sentatives, and law-makers. That is as it should be, isn’t it ? 
What ! not so ? But how can it be otherwise ? Ah, you 
think that a new king will arise who knows not Joseph — that 
is, that a new generation will come to whom these questions 


196 


IN THE COTTON COUNTRY. 


will be things of the past. It may be so ; I do not know. I 
do not know anything certainly any more, for my world has 
been torn asunder, and I am uprooted and lost. No, you can 
not help me, no one can help me. I can not adjust myself to 
the new order of things ; I can not fit myself in new soil ; the 
fibers are broken. Leave me alone, and give your help to the 
young ; they can profit by it. The child ? Well, if — if you 
really wish it, I will not oppose you. Take him, and bring 
him up in your rich, prosperous North ; the South has no 
place for him. Go, and God speed you ! But, as for me, I 
will abide in mine own country. It will not be until such as 
I have gone from earth that the new blood can come, to her. 
Let us alone ; we will watch the old life out with her, and 
when her new dawning comes we shall have joined our dead, 
and all of us, our errors, our sins, and our sufferings will be 
forgotten.” 


FELIPA 


Glooms of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and woven 
With intricate shades of the vines that, myriad cloven, 

Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs. 

.... Green colonnades 

Of the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods, 

Of the heavenly woods and glades, 

That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach within 
The wide sea-marshes of Glynn. 

.... Free 

By a world of marsh that borders a' world of sea. 

Sinuous southward and sinuous northward the shimmering band 

Of the sand-beach fastens the fringe of the marsh to the folds of the land. 

Inward and outward to northward and southward the beach-lines linger and 
curl 

As a silver-wrought garment that clings to and follows the firm, sweet limbs of 
a girl. 

A league and a league of marsh-grass, waist-high, broad in the blade, 

Green, and all of a height, and unflecked with a light or a shade. 

Sidney Lanier. 


Christine and I found her there. She was a small, dark- 
skinned, yellow-eyed child, the offspring of the ocean and the 
heats, tawny, lithe and wild, shy yet fearless — not unlike one 
of the little brown deer that bounded through the open reaches 
of the pine-barren behind the house. She did not come to 
us — we came to her ; we loomed into her life like genii from 
another world, and she was partly afraid and partly proud of 
us. For were we not her guests? proud thought! and, bet- 
ter still, were we not women ? “ I have only seen three wo- 

men in all my life,” said Felipa, inspecting us gravely, “ and I 
like women. I am a woman too, although these clothes of 
the son of Pedro make me appear as a boy ; I wear them on 


198 


FELIPA. 


account of the boat and the hauling in of the fish. The son 
of Pedro being dead at a convenient age, and his clothes fit- 
ting me, what would you have ? It was a chance not to be 
despised. But when I am grown I shall wear robes long and 
beautiful like the senora’s.” The little creature was dressed 
in a boy’s suit of dark-blue linen, much the worse for wear, 
and torn. 

“ If you are a girl, why do you not mend your clothes ? ” 
I said. 

“ Do you mend, senora ? ” 

“ Certainly : all women sew and mend.” 

“ The other lady ? ” 

Christine laughed as she lay at ease upon the brown car- 
pet of pine-needles, warm and aromatic after the tropic day’s 
sunshine. “ The child has divined me already, Catherine,” 
she said. 

Christine was a tall, lissome maid, with an unusually long 
stretch of arm, long sloping shoulders, and a long fair throat ; 
her straight hair fell to her knees when unbound, and its clear 
flaxen hue had not one shade of gold, as her clear gray eyes 
had not one shade of blue. Her small, straight, rose-leaf lips 
parted over small, dazzlingly white teeth, and the outline of 
her face in profile reminded you of an etching in its distinct- 
ness, although it was by no means perfect according to the 
rules of art. Still, what a comfort it was, after the blurred out- 
lines and smudged profiles many of us possess — seen to best 
advantage, I think, in church on Sundays, crowned with flower- 
decked bonnets, listening calmly serene to favorite ministers, 
unconscious of noses ! When Christine had finished her 
laugh — and she never hurried anything — she stretched out 
her arm carelessly and patted Felipa’s curly head. The child 
caught the descending hand and kissed the long white fingers. 

It was a wild place where we were, yet not new or crude — 
the coast of Florida, that old-new land, with its deserted plan- 
tations, its skies of Paradise, and its broad wastes open to the 
changeless sunshine. The old house stood on the edge of the 


FELIPA . 


199 


dry land, where the pine-barren ended and the salt-marsh 
began ; in front curved the tide-water river that seemed ever 
trying to come up close to the barren and make its acquaint- 
ance, but could not quite succeed, since it must always turn 
and flee at a fixed hour, like Cinderella at the ball, leaving not 
a silver slipper behind, but purple driftwood and bright sea- 
weeds, brought in from the Gulf Stream outside. A planked 
platform ran out into the marsh from the edge of the barren, 
and at its end the boats were moored ; for, although at high 
tide the river was at our feet, at low tide it was far away out 
in the green waste somewhere, and if we wanted it we must 
go and seek it. We did not want it, however ; we let it glide 
up to us twice a day with its fresh salt odors and flotsam of 
the ocean, and the rest of the time we wandered over the bar- 
rens or lay under the trees looking up into the wonderful blue 
above, listening to the winds as they rushed across from sea 
to sea. I was an artist, poor and painstaking. Christine was 
my kind friend. She had brought me South because my cough 
was troublesome, and here because Edward Bowne recom- 
mended the place. He and three fellow sportsmen were down 
at the Madre Lagoon, farther south ; I thought it probable we 
should see him, without his three fellow sportsmen, before 
very long. 

“Who were the three women you have seen, Felipa?” 
said Christine. 

“ The grandmother, an Indian woman of the Seminoles 
who comes sometimes with baskets, and the wife of Miguel 
of the island. But they are all old, and their skins are curled : 
I like better the silver skin of the senora.” 

Poor little Felipa lived on the edge of the great salt-marsh 
alone with her grandparents, for her mother was dead. The 
yellow old couple were slow-witted Minorcans, part pagan, 
part Catholic, and wholly ignorant; their minds rarely rose 
above .the level of their orange-trees and their fish-nets. 
Felipa’s father was a Spanish sailor, and, as he had died only 
the year before, the child’s Spanish was fairly correct, and we 


200 


FELIPA. 


could converse with her readily, although we were slow to 
comprehend the patois of the old people, which seemed to 
borrow as much from the Italian tongue and the Greek as 
from its mother Spanish. “ I know a great deal,” Felipa re- 
marked confidently, “ for my father taught me. He had sailed 
on the ocean out of sight of land, and he knew many things. 
These he taught to me. Do the gracious ladies think there is 
anything else to know ? ” 

One of the gracious ladies thought not, decidedly. In 
answer to my remonstrance, expressed in English, she said, 
“ Teach a child like that, and you ruin her.” 

“ Ruin her? ” 

“ Ruin her happiness — the same thing.” 

Felipa had a dog, a second self — a great gaunt yellow 
creature of unknown breed, with crooked legs, big feet, and 
the name Drollo. What Drollo meant, or whether it was an 
abbreviation, we never knew ; but there was a certain satis- 
faction in it, for the dog was droll : the fact that the Minorcan 
title, whatever it was, meant nothing of that sort, made it all 
the better. We never saw Felipa without Drollo. “They 
look a good deal alike,” observed Christine — “ the same col- 
oring.” 

“ For shame ! ” I said. 

But it was true. The child’s bronzed yellow skin and soft 
eyes were not unlike the dog’s, but her head was crowned 
with a mass of short black curls, while Drollo had only his 
two great flapping ears and his low smooth head. Give him 
an inch or two more of skull, and what a creature a dog 
would be ! For love and faithfulness even now what man can 
match him? But, although ugly, Felipa was a picturesque 
little object always, whether attired in boy’s clothes or in her 
own forlorn bodice and skirt. Olive-hued and meager-faced, 
lithe and thin, she flew over the pine-barrens like a creature 
of air, laughing to feel her short curls toss and her thin child- 
ish arms buoyed up on the breeze as she ran, with Drollo 
barking behind. For she loved the winds, and always knew 


FELIPA. 


201 


when they were coming 1 — whether down from the north, in 
from the ocean, or across from the Gulf of Mexico : she 
watched for them, sitting in the. aoorway, where she could 
feel their first breath, and, she taught us the signs of the 
clouds. She was a queer little thing : we used to find her 
sometimes dancing alone out on the barren in a circle she had 
marked out with pine-cones, and once she confided to us that 
she talked to the trees. “ They hear,” she said in a whisper ; 
“ you should see how knowing they look, and how their leaves 
listen.” 

Once we came upon her most secret lair in a dense thicket 
of thorn-myrtle and wild smilax — a little bower she had 
made, where was hidden a horrible-looking image formed of 
the rough pieces of saw-palmetto grubbed up by old Bartolo 
from his garden. She must have dragged these fragments 
thither one by one, and with infinite pains bound them to- 
gether with her rude withes of strong marsh-grass, until at 
last she had formed a rough trunk with crooked arms and a 
sort of a head, the red hairy surface of the palmetto looking 
not unlike the skin of some beast, and making the creature 
all the more grotesque. This fetich was kept crowned with 
flowers, and after this we often saw the child stealing away 
with Drollo to carry to it portions of her meals or a new-found 
treasure — a sea-shell, a broken saucer, or a fragment of rib- 
bon. The food always mysteriously disappeared, and my 
suspicion is that Drollo used to go back secretly’ in the night 
and devour it, asking no questions and telling no lies : it fitted 
in nicely, however, Drollo merely performing the ancient 
part of the priests of Jupiter, men who have been much ad- 
mired. “ What a little pagan she is ! ” I said. 

“ Oh, no, it is only her doll,” replied Christine. 

I tried several times to paint Felipa during these first 
weeks, but those eyes of hers always evaded me. They were, 
as I have said before, yellow — that is, they were brown with 
yellow lights — and they stared at you with the most inflexible 
openness. The child had the full-curved, half-open mouth of 


202 


FELIPA. 



the tropics, and a low Greek forehead. “Why isn’t she 
pretty ? ” I said. 

“ She is hideous,” replibd Christine ; “ look at her elbows.” 

Now Felipa’s arms were unpleasant: they were brown 
and lean, scratched and stained, and they terminated in a 
pair of determined little paws that couiJ hold on like grim 
Death. I shall never forget coming upon a tableau one day 
out on the barren — a little Florida cow and Felipa, she hold- 
ing on by the horns, and the beast with its small fore feet 
stubbornly set in the sand ; girl pulling one way, cow the 
other ; both silent and determined. It was a hard contest, 
but the girl won. 

“ And if you pass over her elbows, there are her feet,” 
continued Christine languidly. For she was a sybaritic lover 
of the fine linens of life, that friend of mine — a pre-Raphaelite 
lady with clinging draperies and a mediaeval clasp on her belt. 
Her whole being rebelled against ugliness, and the mere sight 
of a sharp-nosed, light-eyed woman on a cold day made her 
uncomfortable. 

“ Have we not feet too ? ” I replied sharply. 

But I knew what she meant. Bare feet are not pleasant 
to the eye nowadays, whatever they may have been in the 
days of the ancient Greeks ; and Felipa’s little brown insteps 
were half the time torn or bruised by the thorns of the cha- 
parral. Besides, there was always the disagreeable idea that 
she might sfep upon something cold and squirming when she 
prowled through the thickets knee-deep in the matted grasses. 
Snakes abounded, although we never saw them ; but Felipa 
went up to their very doors, as it were, and rang the bell de- 
fiantly. 

One day old Grandfather Bartolo took the child with him 
down to the coast : she was always wild to go to the beach, 
where she could gather shells and sea-beans, and chase the 
little ocean-birds that ran along close to the waves with that 
swift gliding motion of theirs, and where she could listen to 
the roar of the breakers. We were several miles up the salt- 


FELIPA. 


203 


marsh, and to go down to the ocean was quite a voyage to 
Felipa. She bade us good-by joyously; then ran back to 
hug Christine a second time, then, to the boat again; then 
back. 

“ I thought you wanted to go, child ? ” I said, a little im- 
patiently ; for I was reading aloud, and these small irruptions 
were disturbing. 

“ Yes,” said Felipa, “ I want to go ; and still — Perhaps 
if the gracious sefiora would kiss me again — ” 

Christine only patted her cheek and told her to run away : 
she obeyed, but there was a wistful look in her eyes, and, even 
after the boat had started, her face, watching us from the 
stern, haunted me. 

“ Now that the little monkey has gone, I may be able at 
last to catch and fix a likeness of her,” I said ; “ in this case 
a recollection is better than the changing quicksilver reality.” 

“ You take it as a study of ugliness ? ” 

“ Do not be hard upon the child, Christine.” 

“ Hard ? Why, she adores me,” said my friend, going off 
to her hammock under the tree. 

Several days passed, and the boat returned not. I accom- 
plished a fine amount of work, and Christine a fine amount 
of swinging in the hammock and dreaming. At length one 
afternoon I gave my final touch, and carried my sketch over 
to the pre-Raphaelite lady for criticism. “ What do you see ? ” 
I said. 

“ I see a wild-looking child with yellow eyes, a mat of curly 
black hair, a lank little bodice, her two thin brown arms 
embracing a gaunt old dog with crooked legs, big feet, and 
turned-in toes.” 

“Is that all ? ” 

“ All.” 

“ You do not see latent beauty, courage, and a possible 
great gulf of love in that poor wild little face? ” 

“ Nothing of the kind,” replied Christine decidedly. “ I 
see an ugly little girl ; that is all.” 


204 


FELIPA. 


The next day the boat returned, and brought back five 
persons, the old grandfather, Felipa, Drollo, Miguel of the 
island, and — Edward Bowne. 

“ Already ? ” I said. 

“ Tired of the Madre, Kitty ; thought I would come up 
here and see you for a while. I knew you must be pining for 
me.” 

“ Certainly,” I replied ; “ do you not see how I have wast- 
ed away ? ” 

He drew my arm through his and raced me down the 
plank-walk toward the shore, where I arrived laughing and 
out of breath. 

“ Where is Christine ? ” he asked. 

I came back into the traces at once. “ Over there in the 
hammock. You wish to go to the house first, I suppose ? ” 

“ Of course not.” 

“ But she did not come to meet you, Edward, although 
she knew you had landed.” 

“ Of course not, also.” 

“ I do not understand you two.” 

“ And of course not, a third time,” said Edward, looking 
down at me with a smile. “ What do peaceful little artists 
know about war ? ” 

“ Is it war ? ” 

“Something very like it, Kitty. What is that you are 
carrying ? ” 

“ Oh ! my new sketch. What do you think of it ? ” 

“ Good, very good. Some little girl about here, I suppose ? 

“Why, it is Felipa ! ” 

“And who is Felipa? Seems to me I have seen that old 
dog, though.” 

“ Of course you have ; he was in the boat with you, and 
so was Felipa ; but she was dressed in boy's clothes, and that 
gives her a different look.” 

“ Oh ! that boy ? I remember him. His name is Philip. 
He is a funny little fellow,” said Edward calmly. 


FELIPA. 


205 

“ Her name is Felipa, and she is not a boy or a funny lit- 
tle fellow at all,” I replied. 

“ Isn’t she ? I thought she was both,” replied Ned care- 
lessly ; and then he went off toward the hammock. I turned 
away, after noting Christine’s cool greeting, and went back to 
the boat. 

Felipa came bounding to meet me. “ What is his name ? ” 
she demanded. 

“ Bowne.” 

“ Buon — Buona ; I can not say it.” • ■ 

“ Bowne, child — Edward Bowne.” 

“ Oh ! Eduardo ; I know that. Eduardo — Eduardo — a 
name of honey.” 

She flew off singing the name, followed by Drollo carrying 
his mistress’s palmetto basket in his big patient mouth ; but 
when I passed the house a few moments afterward she was 
singing, or rather talking volubly of, another name — “ Miguel,” 
and “ the wife of Miguel,” who were apparently important 
personages on the canvas of her life. As it happened, I never 
really saw that wife of Miguel, who seemingly had no name 
of her own ; but I imagined her. She lived on a sand-bar in 
the ocean not far from the mouth of our salt-marsh ; she drove 
pelicans like ducks with a long switch, and she had a tame 
eagle ; she had an old horse also, who dragged the driftwood 
across the sand on a sledge, and this old horse seemed like a 
giant horse always, outlined as he was against the flat bar and 
the sky. She went out at dawn, and she went out at sunset, 
but during the middle of the burning day she sat at home and 
polished sea-beans, for which she obtained untold sums ; she 
was very tall, she was very yellow, and she had but one eye. 
These items, one by one, had been dropped by Felipa at vari- 
ous times, and it was with curiosity that I gazed upon the 
original Miguel, the possessor of this remarkable spouse. He 
was a grave-eyed, yellow man, who said little and thought 
less, applying cut bono ? to mental much as the city man ap- 
plies it to bodily exertion, and therefore achieving, I think, a 


20 6 


FELIPA. 


finer degree of inanition. The tame eagle, the pelicans, were 
nothing to him ; and, when I saw his lethargic, gentle counte- 
nance, my own curiosity about them seemed to die away in 
haze, as though I had breathed in an invisible opiate. He 
came, he went, and that was all ; exit Miguel. 

Felipawas constantly with us now. She and Drollo fol- 
lowed the three of us wherever we went — followed the two 
also whenever I staid behind to sketch, as I often staid, for 
in those days I was trying to catch the secret of the salt- 
marsh ; a hopeless effort — I know it now. “ Stay with me, 
Felipa,” I said ; for it was natural to suppose that the lovers 
might like to be alone. (I call them lovers for want of a bet- 
ter name, but they were more like haters ; however, in such 
cases it is nearly the same thing.) And then Christine, hear- 
ing this, would immediately call “Felipa!” and the child 
would dart after them, happy as a bird. She wore her boy’s 
suit now all the time, because the senora had said she “ looked 
well in it.” What the senora really said was, that in boy’s 
clothes she looked less like a grasshopper. But this had been 
translated as above by Edward Bowne when Felipa suddenly 
descended upon him one day and demanded to be instantly 
told what the gracious lady was saying about her ; for she 
seemed to know by intuition when we spoke of her, although 
we talked in English and mentioned no names. When told, 
her small face beamed, and she kissed Christine’s hand joy- 
fully and bounded away. Christine took out her handkerchief 
and wiped the spot. 

“ Christine,” I said, “ do you remember the fate of the 
proud girl who walked upon bread ? ” 

“You think that I may starve for kisses some time?” 
said my friend, going on with the wiping. 

“Not while I am alive,” called out Edward from behind. 
His style of courtship was of the sledge-hammer sort some- 
times. But he did not get much for it on that day ; only lofty 
tolerance, which seemed to amuse him greatly. 

Edward played with Felipa very much as if she was a 


FELfPA. 


20 7 


rubber toy or a little trapeze performer. He held her out at 
arm’s length in mid-air, he poised her on his shoulder, he 
tosse'd her up into the low myrtle-trees, and dangled her by 
her little belt over the claret-colored pools on the barren ; but 
he could not frighten her ; she only laughed and grew wilder 
and wilder, like a squirrel. “ She has muscles and nerves of 
steel,” he said admiringly. 

“ Do put her down ; she is too excitable for such games.” 
I said in French, for Felipa seemed to divine our English now. 
“ See the color she has.” 

For there was a trail of dark red over the child’s thin oval 
cheeks which made her look unlike herself. As she caught 
our eyes fixed upon her, she suddenly stopped her climbing 
and came and sat at Christine’s feet. “ Some day I shall wear 
robes like the senora’s,” she said, passing her hand over the 
soft fabric ; “ and I think,” she added after some slow con- 
sideration, “ that my face will be like the senora’s too.” 

Edward burst out laughing. The little creature stopped 
abruptly and scanned his face. 

“ Do not tease her,” I said. 

Quick as a flash she veered around upon me. “ He does 
not tease me,” she said angrily in Spanish ; “ and, besides, 
what if he does ? I like it.” She looked at me with gleam- 
ing eyes and stamped her foot. 

“ What a little tempest ! ” said Christine. 

Then Edward, man-like, began to explain. “ You could 
not look much like this lady, Felipa,” he said, V because you 
are so dark, you know.” 

“ Am I dark ? ” 

“ Very dark ; but many people are dark, of course ; and 
for my part I always liked dark eyes,” said this mendacious 
person. 

“ Do you like my eyes? ” asked Felipa anxiously. 

“ Indeed I do : they are like the eyes of a dear little calf I 
once owned when I was a boy.” 

The child was satisfied, and went back to her place beside 


208 


FELIPA. 


Christine. “ Yes, I shall wear robes like this,” she said 
dreamily, drawing the flowing drapery over her knees clad in 
the little linen trousers, and scanning the effect ; “ they would 
trail behind me — so.” Her bare feet peeped out below the 
hem, and again we all laughed, the little brown toes looked 
so comical coming out from the silk and the snowy embroid- 
eries. She came down to reality again, looked at us, looked 
at herself, and for the first time seemed to comprehend the 
difference. Then suddenly she threw herself down on the 
ground like a little animal, and buried her head in her arms. 
She would not speak, she would not look up : she only re- 
laxed one arm a little to take in Drollo, and then lay mo- 
tionless. Drollo looked at us out of one eye solemnly from 
his uncomfortable position, as much as to say: “No use; 
leave her to me.” So after a while we went away and left 
them there. 

That evening I heard a low knock at my door. “ Come 
in,” I said, and Felipa entered. I hardly knew her. She was 
dressed in a flowered muslin gown which had probably be- 
longed to her mother, and she wore her grandmother’s stock- 
ings and large baggy slippers ; on her mat of curly hair was 
perched a high-crowned, stiff white cap adorned with a rib- 
bon streamer ; and her lank little neck, coming out of the big 
gown, was decked with a chain of large sea-beans, like ex- 
aggerated lockets. She carried a Cuban fan in her hand 
which was as large as a parasol, and Drollo, walking behind, 
fairly clanked with the chain of sea-shells which she -had 
wound around him from head to tail. The droll tableau and 
the supreme pride on Felipa’s countenance overcame me, and 
I laughed aloud. A sudden cloud of rage and disappoint- 
ment came over the poor child’s face : she threw her cap on 
the floor and stamped on it ; she tore off her necklace and 
writhed herself out of her big flowered gown, and, running to 
Drollo, nearly strangled him in her fierce efforts to drag off 
his shell chains. Then, a half-dressed, wild little phantom, 
she seized me by the skirts and dragged me toward the look- 


FELIPA. 


209 

ing-glass. “ You are not pretty either,” she cried. “ Look at 
yourself ! look at yourself ! ” 

“I did not mean to laugh at you, Felipa,” I said gently; 
“ I would not laugh at any one ; and it is true I am not pretty, 
as you say. I can never be pretty, child ; but, if you will try 
to be more gentle, I could teach you how to dress yourself so 
that no one would laugh at you again. I could make you a 
little bright-barred skirt and a scarlet bodice : you could help, 
and that would teach you to sew. But a little girl who wants 
all this done for her must be quiet and good.” 

“ I am good,” said Felipa; “as good as everything.” 

The tears still stood in her eyes, but her anger was for- 
gotten : she improvised a sort of dance around my room, fol- 
lowed by Drollo dragging his twisted chain, stepping on it 
with his big feet, and finally winding himself up into a knot 
around the chair-legs. 

“ Couldn’t we make Drollo something too ? dear old Drol- 
lo!” said Felipa, going to him and squeezing him in an en- 
thusiastic embrace. I used to wonder how his poor ribs 
stood it : Felipa used him as a safety-valve for her impetuous 
feelings. 

She kissed me good night, and then asked for “ the other 
lady.” 

“ Go to bed, child,” I said ; “ I will give her your good 
night.” 

“ But I want to kiss her too,” said Felipa. 

She lingered at the door and would not go ; she played 
with the latch, and made me nervous with its clicking ; at last 
I ordered her out. But on opening my door half an hour 
afterward there she was sitting on the floor outside in the 
darkness, she and Drollo, patiently waiting. Annoyed, but 
unable to reprove her, I wrapped the child in my shawl 
and carried her out into the moonlight, where Christine 
and Edward were strolling to and fro under the pines. 
“ She will not go to bed, Christine, without kissing you,” I 
explained. 


210 


FELIPA. 


“ Funny little monkey ! ” said my friend, passively allow- 
ing the embrace. 

“ Me too,” said Edward, bending down. Then I carried 
my bundle back satisfied. 

The next day Felipa and I in secret began our labors : 
hers consisted in worrying me out of my life and spoiling 
material — mine in keeping my temper and trying to sew. 
The result, however, was satisfactory, never mind how we 
got there. I led Christine out one afternoon : Edward fol- 
lowed. “ Do you like tableaux ? ” I said. “ There is one I 
have arranged for you.” 

Felipa sat on the edge of the low, square-curbed Spanish 
well, and Drollo stood behind her, his great yellow body and 
solemn head serving as a background. She wore a brown 
petticoat barred with bright colors, and a little scarlet bodice 
fitting her slender waist closely ; a chemisette of soft cream- 
color with loose sleeves covered her neck and arms, and set 
off the dark hues of her cheeks and eyes ; and around her 
curly hair a red scarf was twisted, its fringed edges forming 
a drapery at the back of the head, which, more than anything 
else, seemed to bring out the latent character of her face. 
Brown moccasins, red stockings, and a quantity of bright 
beads completed her costume. 

“ By Jove ! ” cried Edward, “ the little thing is almost 
pretty.” 

Felipa understood this, and a great light came into her 
face : forgetting her pose, she bounded forward to Christine’s 
side. “ I dm pretty, then ? ” she said with exultation ; “ I 
am pretty, then, after all ? F or now you yourself have said 
it — have said it.” 

“ No, Felipa,” I interposed, “ the gentleman said it.” For 
the child had a curious habit of confounding the two iden- 
tities which puzzled me then as now. But this afternoon, 
this happy afternoon, she was content, for she was allowed to 
sit at Christine’s feet and look up into her fair face unmolest- 
ed. I was forgotten, as usual. 


FELIPA. 


211 


“ It is always so," I said to myself. But cynicism, as Mr. 
Aldrich says, is a small brass field-piece that eventually bursts 
and kills the artilleryman. I knew this, having been blown 
up myself more than once ; so I went back to my painting 
and forgot the world. Our world down there on the edge of 
the salt-marsh, however, was a small one : when two persons 
went out of it there was a vacuum. 

One morning Felipa came sadly to my side. “ They have 
gone away," she said. 

“Yes, child." 

“ Down to the beach to spend all the day." 

“ Yes, I know it." 

“ And without me ! ” 

This was the climax. I looked up. Her eyes were dry, 
but there was a hollow look of disappointment in her face 
that made her seem old ; it was as though for an instant you 
caught what her old-woman face would be half a century on. 

“ Why did they not take me ? ” she said. “ I am pretty 
now : she herself said it." 

“ They can not always take you, Felipa,” I replied, giving 
up the point as to who had said it. 

. « Why not ? I am pretty now : she herself said it," per- 
sisted the child. “ In these clothes, you know : she herself 
said it. The clothes of the son of Pedro you will never see 
more : they are burned." 

“ Burned ? " 

“Yes, burned," replied Felipa composedly. “I carried 
them out on the barren and burned them. Drollo singed his 
paw. They burned quite nicely. But they are gone, and I 
am pretty now, and yet they did not take me ! What shall I 
do ? ” 

“ Take these colors and make me a picture," I suggested. 
Generally, this was a prized privilege, but to-day it did not 
attract ; she turned away, and a few moments after I saw her 
going down to the end of the plank-walk, where she stood 
gazing wistfully toward the ocean. There she staid all day, 


212 


F ELI PA. 


going into camp with Drollo, and refusing to come to dinner 
in spite of old Dominga’s calls and beckonings. At last the 
patient old grandmother went down herself to the end of the 
long walk where they were, with some bread and venison on 
a plate. Felipa ate but little, but Drollo, after waiting politely 
until she had finished, devoured everything that was left in 
his calmly hungry way, and then sat back on his haunches 
with one paw on the plate, as though for the sake of memory. 
Drollo’s hunger was of the chronic kind ; it seemed impos- 
sible either to assuage it or to fill him. There was a gaunt 
leanness about him which I am satisfied no amount of food 
could ever fatten. I think he knew it too, and that accounted 
for his resignation. At length, just before sunset, the boat 
returned, floating up the marsh with the tide, old Bartolo 
steering and managing the brown sails. Felipa sprang up 
joyfully ; I thought she would spring into the boat in her 
eagerness. What did she receive for her long vigil ? A short 
word or two ; that was all. Christine and Edward had quar- 
reled. 

How do lovers quarrel ordinarily ? But I should not ask 
that, for these were no ordinary lovers : they were extraor- 
dinary. 

“ You should not submit to her caprices so readily,” I said 
the next day while strolling on the barren with Edward. (He 
was not so much cast down, however, as he might have 
been.) 

“ I adore the very ground her foot touches, Kitty.” 

“ I know it. But how w"ll it end ? ” 

“ I will tell you : some of these days I shall win her, and 
then — she will adore me.” 

Here Felipa came running after us, and Edward immedi- 
ately challenged her to a race : a game of romps began. If 
Christine had been looking from her window she might have 
thought he was not especially disconsolate over her absence ; 
but she was not looking. She was never looking out of any- 
thing or for anybody. She was always serenely content where 


FELIPA. 


213 


she was. Edward and F elipa strayed off among the pine- 
trees, and gradually I lost sight of them. But as I sat sketch- 
ing an hour afterward Edward came into view, carrying the 
child in his arms. I hurried to meet them. 

“ I shall never forgive myself,” he said ; “the little thing 
has fallen and injured her foot badly, I fear.” 

“ I do not care at all,” said Felipa ; “ I like to have it hurt. 
It is my foot, isn’t it ? ” 

These remarks she threw at me defiantly, as though I had 
laid claim to the member in question. I could not help 
laughing. 

“ The other lady will not laugh,” said the child proudly. 
And in truth Christine, most unexpectedly, took up the role 
of nurse. She carried Felipa to her own room — for we each 
had a little cell opening out of the main apartment — and as 
white-robed Charity she shone with new radiance, “ Shone ” 
is the proper word ; for through the open door of the dim 
cell, with the dark little face of Felipa on her shoulder, her 
white robe and skin seemed fairly to shine, as white lilies 
shine on a dark night. The old grandmother left the child in 
our care and watched our proceedings wistfully, very much as 
a dog watches the human hands that extract the thorn from 
the swollen foot of her puppy. She was grateful and asked 
no questions ; in fact, thought was not one of her mental 
processes. She did not think much ; she felt. As for Felipa, 
the child lived in rapture during those days in spite of her 
suffering. She scarcely slept at all — she was too happy : I 
heard her voice rippling on through the night, and Christine’s 
low replies. She adored her beautiful nurse. 

The fourth day came : Edward Bowne walked into the 
cell. “ Go out and breathe the fresh air for an hour or two,” 
he said in the tone more of a command than a request. 

“ The child will never consent,” replied Christine sweetly. 

“ Oh, yes, she will ; I will stay with her,” said the young 
man, lifting the feverish little head on his arm and passing his 
hand softly over the bright eyes. 


214 


FELIPA. 


“Felipa, do you not want me?” said Christine, bending 
down. 

“ He stays ; it is all the same,” murmured the child. 

“ So it is. — Go, Christine,” said Edward with a little smile 
of triumph. 

Without a word Christine left the cell. But she did not 
go to walk ; she came to my room, and, throwing herself on 
my bed, fell in a moment into a deep sleep, the reaction after 
her three nights of wakefulness. When she awoke it was 
long after dark, and I had relieved Edward in his watch. 

“ You will have to give it up,” he said as our lily came 
forth at last with sleep-flushed cheeks and starry eyes shielded 
from the light. “ The spell is broken ; we have all been 
taking care of Felipa, and she likes one as well as the other.” 

Which was not true, in my case at least, since Felipa had 
.openly derided my small strength when I lifted her, and beat 
off the sponge with which I attempted to bathe her hot face, 
“ They ” used no sponges, she said, only their nice cool hands ; 
and she wished “ they ” would come and take care of her again. 
But Christine had resigned in toto. If Felipa did not prefer 
her to all others, then Felipa should not have her; she was 
not a common nurse. And indeed she was not. Her fair 
face, ideal grace, cooing voice, and the strength of her long 
arms and flexible hands, were like magic to the sick, and — 
distraction to the well ; the well in this case being Edward 
Bowne looking in at the door. 

“ You love them very much, do you not, Felipa? ” I said 
one day when the child was sitting up for the first time in a 
cushioned chair. 

“ Ah, yes ; it is so strong when they carry me,” she re- 
plied. But it was Edward who carried her. 

“ He is very strong,” I said. 

“ Yes ; and their long soft hair, with the smell of roses in 
it too,” said Felipa dreamily. But the hair was Christine's. 

“ I shall love them for ever, and they will love me for 
ever,” continued the child. “Drollo too.” She patted the 


FELIPA. 


21 5 


dog’s head as she spoke, and then concluded to kiss him on 
his little inch of forehead ; next she offered him all her medi- 
cines and lotions in turn, and he smelled at them grimly. 
“ He likes to know what I am taking,” she explained. 

I went on : “You love them, Felipa, and they are fond of 
you. They will always remember you, no doubt.” 

“ Remember ! ” cried Felipa, starting up from her cushions 
like a Jack-in-the box. “ They are not going away ? Never ! 
never ! ” 

“ But of course they must go some time, for — ” 

But Felipa was gone. Before I could divine her intent 
she had flung herself out of her chair down on the floor, and 
was crawling on her hands and knees toward the outer room. 
I ran after her, but she reached the door before me, and, 
dragging her bandaged foot behind her, drew herself toward 
Christine. “ You are not going away ! You are not ! you are 
not ! ” she sobbed, clinging to her skirts. 

Christine was reading tranquilly; Edward stood at the 
outer door mending his fishing-tackle. The coolness between 
them remained, unwarmed by so much as a breath. “ Run 
away, child ; you disturb me,” said Christine, turning over a 
leaf. She did not even look at the pathetic little bundle at her 
feet. Pathetic little bundles must be taught some time what 
ingratitude deserves. 

“ How can she run, lame as she is ? ” said Edward from 
the doorway. 

“You are not going away, are you? Tell me you are 
not,” sobbed Felipa in a passion of tears, beating on the 
floor with one hand, and with the other clinging to Chris- 
tine. 

“ I am not going,” said Edward. “ Do not sob so, you 
poor little thing ! ” 

She crawled to him, and he took her up in his arms and 
soothed her into stillness again ; then he carried her out on 
the barren for a breath of fresh air. 

“ It is a most extraordinary thing how that child confounds 


21 6 


FELIPA. 


you two,” I said. “ It is a case of color-blindness, as it were 
— supposing you two were colors.” 

“ Which we are not,” replied Christine carelessly. “ Do 
not stray off into mysticism, Catherine.” 

“ It is not mysticism ; it is a study of character — ” 

“ Where there is no character,” replied my friend. 

I gave it up, but I said to myself : “ Fate, in the next 
world make me one of those long, lithe, light-haired women, 
will you ? I want to see how it feels.” 

Felipa’s foot was well again, and spring had come. Soon 
we must leave our lodge on the edge of the pine-barren, our 
outlook over the salt-marsh, with the river sweeping up twice a 
day, bringing in the briny odors of the ocean ; soon we should 
see no more the eagles far above us or hear the night-cry of 
the great owls, and we must go without the little fairy flowers 
of the barren, so small that a hundred of them scarcely made 
a tangible bouquet, yet what beauty ! what sweetness ! In 
my portfolio were sketches and studies of the salt-marsh, and 
in my heart were hopes. Somebody says somewhere : “ Hope 
is more than a blessing ; it is a duty and a virtue.” But I fail 
to appreciate preserved hope — hope put up in cans and served 
out in seasons of depression. I like it fresh from the tree. 
And so when I hope it is hope, and not that well-dried, monot- 
onous cheerfulness which makes one long to throw the per- 
sistent smilers out of the window. Felipa danced no more 
on the barrens ; her illness had toned her down ; she seemed 
content to sit at our feet while we talked, looking up dreamily 
into our faces, but no longer eagerly endeavoring to compre- 
hend. We were there ; that was enough. 

“ She is growing like a reed,” I said ; “ her illness has left 
her weak.” 

“ -Minded,” suggested Christine. 

At this moment Felipa stroked the lady’s white hand ten- 
derly and laid her brown cheek against it. 

“ Do you not feel reproached ? ” I said. 

“ Why ? Must we give our love to whoever loves us ? A 


FELIPA. 


21 7 


fine parcel of paupers we should all be, wasting our inheri- 
tance in pitiful small change ! Shall I give a thousand beg- 
gars a half hour’s happiness, or shall I make one soul rich 
his whole life long ? ” 

“ The latter,” remarked Edward, who had come up unob- 
served. 

They gazed at each other unflinchingly. They had come 
to open battle during those last days, and I knew that the end 
was near. Their words had been cold as ice, cutting as steel, 
and I said to myself, “ At any moment.” There would be a 
deadly struggle, and then Christine would yield. Even I com- 
prehended something of what that yielding would be. 

“ Why do they hate each other so ? ” Felipa said to me 
sadly. 

“ Do they hate each other ? ” 

“ Yes, for I feel it here,” she answered, touching her breast 
with a dramatic little gesture. 

“ Nonsense ! Go and play with your doll, child.” For I 
had made her a respectable, orderly doll to take the place of 
the ungainly fetich out on the barren. 

Felipa gave me a look and walked away. A moment 
afterward she brought the doll out of the house before my 
very eyes, and, going down to the end of the dock, deliber- 
ately threw it into the water ; the tide was flowing out, and 
away went my toy- woman out of sight, out to sea. 

“ Well ! ” I said to myself. “ What next ? ” 

I had not told Felipa we were going ; I thought it best to 
let it take her by surprise. I had various small articles of 
finery ready as farewell gifts, which should act as sponges to 
absorb her tears. But Fate took the whole matter out of my 
hands. This is how it happened : One evening in the jas- 
mine arbor, in the fragrant darkness of the warm spring night, 
.the end came ; Christine was won. She glided in like a wraith, 
and I, divining at once what had happened, followed her into 
her little room, where I found her lying on her bed, her hands 
clasped on her breast, her eyes open and veiled in soft shad- 
io 


2 1 8 


FELIPA. 


ows, her white robe drenched with dew. I kissed her fondly 
— I never could help loving her then or now — and next I went 
out to find Edward. He had been kind to me all my poor gray 
life ; should I not go to him now ? He was still in the arbor, 
and I sat down by his side quietly ; I knew that the words 
would come in time. They came ; what a flood ! English 
was not enough for him. He poured forth his love in the 
rich-vow T eled Spanish tongue also ; it has sounded doubly 
sweet to me ever since. 

“ Have you felt the wool of the beaver ? 

Or swan’s down ever ? 

Or have smelt the bud o’ the brier ? 

Or the nard in the fire ? 

Or ha’ tasted the bag o’ the bee ? 

Oh so white, oh so soft, oh so sweet is she ! ” 

said the young lover ; and I, listening there in the dark fra- 
grant night, with the dew heavy upon me, felt glad that the old 
simple-hearted love was not entirely gone from our tired me- 
tallic world. 

It was late when we returned to the house. After reach- 
ing my room I found that I had left my cloak in the arbor. 
It was a strong fabric ; the dew could not hurt it, but it could 
hurt my sketching materials and various trifles in the wide in- 
side pockets — objets de luxe to me, souvenirs of happy times, 
little artistic properties that I hang on the walls of my poor 
studio when in the city. I went softly out into the darkness 
again and sought the arbor ; groping on the ground I found, 
not the cloak, but — Felipa ! She was crouched under the 
foliage, face downward ; she would not move or answer. 

“ What is the matter, child ? ” I said, but she would not 
speak. I tried to draw her from her lair, but she tangled her- 
self stubbornly still farther among the thorny vines, and I 
could not move her. I touched her neck; it was cold. 
Frightened, I ran back to the house for a candle. 

“ Go away,” she said in a low hoarse voice when I flashed 


FEL1PA. 


219 

the light over her. “ I know all, and I am going to die. I 
have eaten th£ poison things in your box, and just now a 
snake came on my neck and I let him. He has bitten me, 
and I am glad. Go away ; I am going to die." 

I looked around ; there was my color-case rifled and emp- 
ty, and the other articles were scattered on the ground. 
“ Good Heavens, child ! ” I cried, “ what have you eaten ? " 

“ Enough," replied Felipa gloomily. “ I knew they were 
poisons ; you told me so. And I let the snake stay." 

By this time the household, aroused by my hurried exit 
with the candle, came toward the arbor. The moment Ed- 
ward appeared Felipa rolled herself up like a hedgehog again 
and refused to speak. But the old grandmother knelt down 
and drew the little crouching figure into her arms with gentle 
tenderness, smoothing its hair and murmuring loving words 
in her soft dialect. 

“What is it ? "said Edward ; but even then his eyes were 
devouring Christine, who stood in the dark vine-wreathed 
doorway like a picture in a frame. I explained. 

Christine smiled. “Jealousy,” she said in a low voice. 
“ I am not surprised." 

But at the first sound of her voice Felipa had started up, 
and, wrenching herself free from old Dominga’s arms, threw 
herself at Christine’s feet. “ Look at me so," she cried — “ me 
too ; do not look at him. He has forgotten poor Felipa ; he 
does not love her any more. But you do not forget, senora ; 
you love me— you love me. Say you do, or I shall die ! " 

We were all shocked by the pallor and the wild, hungry 
look of her uplifted face. Edward bent dawn and tried to 
lift her in his arms ; but when she saw him a sudden fierce- 
ness came into her eyes ; they shot out yellow light and seemed 
to narrow to a point of flame. Before we knew it she had 
turned, seized something, and plunged it into his encircling 
arm. It was my little Venetian dagger. 

We sprang forward ; our dresses -were spotted with the 
fast-flowing blood ; but Edward did not relax his hold on the 


2 20 


FELTPA. 


writhing, wild little body he held until it lay exhausted in his 
arms. “I am glad I did it," said the child, looking up into 
his face with her inflexible eyes. “ Put me down — put me 
down, I say, by the gracious senora, that I may die with the 
trailing of her white robe over me.” And the old grand- 
mother with trembling hands received her and laid her down 
mutely at Christine’s feet. 

Ah, well ! Felipa did not die. The poisons racked but 
did not kill her, and the snake must have spared the little thin 
brown neck so despairingly offered to him. We went away ; 
there was nothing for us to do but to go away as quickly as 
possible and leave her to her kind. To the silent old grand- 
father I said : “ It will pass ; she is but a child.” 

“ She is nearly twelve, senora. Her mother was married 
at thirteen.” 

“ But she loved them both alike, Bartolo. It is nothing ; 
she does not know.” 

“ You are right, lady; she does not know,” replied the old 
man slowly ; “ but / know. It was two loves, and the strong- 
er thrust the knife.” 


To him that hath, we are told, 

Shall be given. Yes, by the Cross ! 

To the rich man Fate sends gold, 

To the poor man loss on loss. 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 

( . 

Two houses, a saw-mill, and a tide-water marsh, with a 
railroad-track crossing it from northeast to southwest; on 
the other side the sea. One of the houses was near the 
drawbridge, and there the keeper lived, old Mr. Vickery. 
Not at all despised was old Mr. Vickery on account of his 
lowly occupation : the Vickerys had always lived on Vickery 
Island, and, although they were poor now, they had once 
been rich, and their name was still as well known as the sun 
in Port Wilbarger, and all Wilbarger district. Fine sea-island 
cotton was theirs once, and black hands to sow and gather 
it ; salt-air made the old house pleasant. The air was still 
there, but not the cotton or the hands; and, when*a keeper 
was wanted for the drawbridge of the new railroad, what 
more natural than that one should be selected who lived on 
the spot rather than a resident of Port Wilbarger, two miles 
away ? • 

The other house was on Wilbarger Island, at the edge of 
the town, and, in itself uninteresting and unimportant, was 
yet accepted, like the plain member of a handsome family, 
because of its associations ; for here lived Mrs. Manning and 
her daughter Marion. 

The saw-mill was on the one point of solid mainland 
which ran down into the water cleanly and boldly, without 


222 


“ BROr 


any fringe of marsh ; the river-channel was narrow here, and 
a row-boat brought the saw-miller across to the Manning 
cottage opposite three times each day. His name was 
Cranch, Ambrose Cranch, but everybody called him “Bro.” 
He took his meals at the cottage, and had t^ken them there 
for years. New-comers at Wilbarger, and those persons who 
never have anything straight in their minds, supposed he was 
a relative; but he was not — only a friend. Mrs. Manning 
was a widow, fat, inefficient, and amiable. Her daughter 
Marion was a slender, erect young person of twenty-five 
years of age, with straight eyebrows, gray eyes, a clearly cut, 
delicate profile, and the calmness of perfect but unobtrusive 
health. She was often spoken of as an unmoved sort of girl, 
and certainly there were few surface-ripples ; but there is a 
proverb about still waters which sometimes came to the minds 
of those who noticed physiognomy when they looked at her, 
although it is but fair to add that those who noticed anything 
in particular were rare in Wilbarger, where people were either 
too indolent or too good-natured to make those conscientious 
studies of their neighbors which are demanded by the code 
of morals prevailing on the coast farther north. 

Port Wilbarger was a very small seaport, situated on the 
inland side of a narrow island ; the coastwise steamers going 
north and south touched there, coming in around the water- 
comer, passing the Old Town, the mile-long foot-bridge, and 
stopping at the New Town for a few moments ; then back- 
ing around with floundering and splashing, and going away 
again. The small inside steamers, which came down from 
the last city in the line of sea-cities south of New York by 
an anomalous route advertised as “ strictly inland all the way,” 
also touched there, as if to take a free breath before plunging 
again into the narrow, grassy channels, and turning curves 
by the process of climbing the bank with the bow and letting 
the stern swing round, while men with poles pushed off again. 
It was the channel of this inside route which the railroad- 
drawbridge crossed in the midst of a broad, sea-green prairie 


“ BROr 


223 


below the town. As there was but one locomotive, and, when 
it had gone down the road in the morning, nothing could 
cross again until it came back at night, one would suppose 
that the keeper might have left the bridge turned for the 
steamers all day. But no : the superintendent was a man 
of spirit, and conducted his railroad on the principle of 
what it should be rather than what it was. He had a hand- ' 
car of his own, and came rolling along the track at all hours, 
sitting with dignity in an arm-chair while two red-shirted ne- 
groes worked at the crank. There were several drawbridges, 
on his route, and it was his pleasure that they should all be 
exactly in place, save when a steamer was actually passing 
through ; he would not even allow the keepers to turn the 
bridges a moment before it was necessary, and timed himself 
sometimes so as to pass over on his hand-car when the bow 
of the incoming boat was not ten yards distant. 

But, even with its steamers, its railroad, and railroad su- 
perintendent of the spirit above described, Port Wilbarger 
was but a sleepy, half-alive little town. Over toward the sea 
it had a lighthouse and a broad, hard, silver-white beach, 
which would have made the fortune of a Northern village ; 
but when a Northern visitor once exclaimed, enthusiastically, 
“Why, I understand that you can walk for twenty miles 
down that beach ! ” a Wilbarger citizen looked at him slowly, 
and answered, “Yes, you can — if you want to.” There was, 
in fact, a kind of cold, creeping rat wind, which did not rise 
high enough to stir the tops or the trees to and fro, but 
which, nevertheless, counted for a good deal over on that 
beach. 

Mrs. Manning was poor ; but everybody was poor at 
Wilbarger, and nobody minded it much. Marion was the 
housekeeper and house-provider, and everything went on like 
clock-work. Marion was like her father, it was said ; but 
nobody remembered him very clearly. He was a Northerner, 
who had come southward seeking health, and finding none. 
But he found Miss Forsythe instead, and married her. How 


224 


“ BRO r 


it happened that Ambrose Cranch, not a relative but a non- 
descript, should be living in a household presided over by 
Forsythe blood, was as follows : First, he had put out years 
before a fire in Mrs. Manning’s kitchen which would other- 
wise have burned the wooden house to the ground ; that be- 
gan the acquaintance. Second, learning that her small prop- 
erty was in danger of being swept away entirely, owing to 
unpaid taxes and mismanagement, he made a journey to the 
capital of the State in her behalf, and succeeded after much 
trouble in saving a part of it for her. It was pure kindness 
on his part in a time of general distress, and from another 
man would have been called remarkable ; but nothing could 
be called remarkable in Ambrose Cranch : he had never been 
of any consequence in Wilbarger or his life. Mrs. Manning 
liked him, and, after a while, asked him to come and take his 
meals at the cottage : the saw-mill was directly opposite, and 
it would be neighborly. Ambrose, who had always eaten his 
dinners at the old Wilbarger Hotel, in the dark, crooked din- 
ing-room, which had an air of mystery not borne out by any- 
thing, unless it might be its soups, gladly accepted, and trans- 
ferred his life to the mainland point and the cottage opposite, 
with the row-boat as a ferry between. He was so inoffensive 
and willing, and so skillful with his hands, that he was soon 
as much a part of the household as old Dinah herself ; he 
mended and repaired, praised the good dishes, watered the 
flowers, and was an excellent listener. It would be amusing 
to know how much the fact of being, or securing, a good 
listener has to do with our lives. Mrs. Manning, fond of 
reminiscence and long narratives which were apt to run off at 
random, so that, whereas you began with the Browns, you 
ended with something about the Smiths, and never heard the 
Brown story at all, actually retained Ambrose Cranch at her 
table for eleven years because he listened well. But she did 
not realize it ; neither did he. A simpler, more unplotting 
soul never existed than that in the saw-miller’s body. A 
word now as to that body : it had a good deal to do with its 


“ BROr 


225 


owner’s life, and our story. (O brothers and sisters, if Justice 
holds the balance, how handsome some of us are going to be 
in the next life !) Ambrose Cranch was tall and thin, what is 
called rawboned; all his joints were large and prominent, 
from his knuckles to his ankles. He had large, long feet and 
hands, and large, long ears; his feet shambled when he 
walked, his arms dangled from the shoulders like the arms of 
a wooden doll, and he had a long, sinewed throat, which no 
cravat or collar could hide, though he wore them up to his 
ears. Not that he did so wear them, however: he had no 
idea that his throat was ugly ; he never thought about it at 
all. He had a long face, small, mild blue eyes, thin, lank 
brown hair, a large mouth, and long, narrow nose ; he was, also, 
the most awkward man in the world. Was there no redeem- 
ing point ? Hardly. His fingers were nicely finished at the 
ends, and sometimes he had rather a sweet smile. But in the 
contemplation of his joints, shoulders, elbows, wrists, and 
knuckles, even the student of anatomy hardly got as far as 
his finger-ends ; and as to the smile, nobody saw it but the 
Mannings, who did not care about it. In origin he was, as 
before mentioned, a nondescript, having come from the up- 
country, where Southern ways shade off into mountain rough- 
ness ; which again gives place to the river-people, and they, 
farther on, to the Hoosiers and Buckeyes, who are felicitously 
designated by the expressive title of “Western Yankees.” 
He had inherited the saw-mill from an uncle, who had tried 
to make something of it, failed, and died. Ambrose, being a 
patient man, and one of smallest possible personal expendi- 
ture, managed to live, and even to save a little money — but 
only a little. He had been there twelve years, and was now 
thirty-eight years old. All this the whole town of Wilbarger 
knew, or might have known ; it was no secret. But the saw- 
mill had a secret of its own, besides. Up stairs, in the back 
part, was a small room with a lock on the door, and windows 
with red cloth nailed over them in place of glass. Here Am- 
brose spent many moments of his day, and all of his even- 


226 


‘ BRO." 


ings, quite alone. His red lights shone across the marsh, and 
could be seen from Vickery Island and the drawbridge ; but 
they were not visible on the Wilbarger side, and attracted, 
therefore, no attention. However, it is doubtful whether they 
would have attracted attention anyway. Wilbarger people 
did not throw away their somewhat rarely excited interest 
upon Ambrose Cranch, who represented to them the flattest 
commonplace. They knew when his logs came, they knew 
the quantity and quality of his boards, they saw him super- 
intending the loading of the schooner that bore them away, 
and that was all. Even the two negroes who worked in the 
mill — one bright, young, and yellow ; the other old, slow, and 
black — felt no curiosity about the locked room and Cranch ’s 
absences ; it was but a part of his way. 

What was in this room, then ? Nothing finished as yet, 
save dreams. Cranch had that strong and singular bias of 
mind which makes, whether successful or unsuccessful, the 
inventor. 

It was a part of his unconsequence in every way that all 
persons called him “Bro” — even his negro helpers at the 
mill. When he first came to live with Mrs. Manning, she 
had tried hard to speak of him as “ Mr. Cranch,” and had 
taught her daughter to use the title ; but, as time wore on, 
she had dropped into Bro again, and so had Marion. But, 
now that Marion was twenty-five and her own mistress, she 
had taken up the custom of calling him “ Ambrose,” the only 
person in the whole of Wilbarger who used, or indeed knew, 
the name. This she did, not on his account at all, but on her 
own ; she disliked nicknames, and did not consider it digni- 
fied to use them. Cranch enjoyed her “ Ambrose ” greatly, 
and felt an inward pride every time she spoke it ; but he said 
nothing, 

There was a seminary at Wilbarger— a forlorn, ill-sup- 
ported institution, under the charge of the Episcopal Church 
of the diocese. But the Episcopal Church of the diocese 
was, for the time being, extremely poor, and its missions and 


“ BRO." 


227 


schools were founded more in a spirit of hope than in any 
certainty of support ; with much the same faith, indeed, which 
its young deacons show when they enter (as they all do at the 
earliest possible moment) into the responsibilities of matri- 
mony. But in this seminary was, by chance, an excellent 
though melancholy-minded teacher — a Miss Drough, equally 
given to tears and arithmetic. Miss Drough was an adept at 
figures, and, taking a fancy to Marion Manning, she taught 
her all she knew up to trigonometry, with chess problems and 
some astronomy thrown in. Marion had no especial liking 
for mathematics in the beginning, but her clear mind had fol- 
lowed her ardent teacher willingly : at twenty-five she was 
a skilled arithmetician, passably well educated in ordinary 
branches, well read in strictly old-fashioned literature, and 
not very pious, because she had never liked the reverend gen- 
tleman in charge of the seminary and the small church — a 
thin man who called himself “ a worm,’' and always ate all 
the best bits of meat, pressing, meanwhile, with great cor- 
diality, the pale, watery sweet-potatoes upon the hungry 
schoolgirls. She was also exceedingly contemptuous in man- 
ner as to anything approaching flirtation with the few cava- 
liers of Wilbarger. It is rather hard to call them cavaliers, 
since they no longer had any good horses ; but they came 
from a race of cavaliers, the true “ armed horsemen ” of 
America, if ever we had any. The old-time Southerners 
went about on horseback much more than on foot or in car- 
riages ; and they went armed. 

“ Bro, will you mend the gate-latch ? ” said Mrs. Manning 
at the breakfast-table. They did not breakfast early; Mrs. 
Manning had never been accustomed to early breakfasts : the 
work at the saw-mill began and went on for three hours be- 
fore the saw-miller broke his fast. Bro mended the latch, 
and then, after a survey of the garden, went up to the open 
window of the dining-room and said : 

“ Shall I water the flowers, Miss Marion ? They look 
sadly this morning.” 


228 


“ BRO." 


" Yes, if you please, Ambrose,” replied the erect young 
person within, who was washing the cups, and the few old 
spoons and forks she called “ the silver.” The flowers were 
a link between them ; they would not grow, and everybody 
told her they would not save Bro, who believed in them to the 
last, and watched even their dying struggles with unfailing 
hope. The trouble was that she set her mind upon flowers 
not suited to the soil ; she sent regularly for seeds and slips, 
and would have it that they must grow whether they wished 
to or not. Whatever their wishes were, floral intentions ne- 
cessarily escaping our grosser senses, one thing was certain — 
grow they did not, in spite of Bro’s care. He now watered 
the consumptives of the day tenderly ; he coaxed straggling 
branches and gently tied up weak ones, saw with concern 
that the latest balsam was gone, and, after looking at it for a 
while, thought it his duty to tell its mistress. 

“ i/am sorry, Miss Marion,” he said, going to the window- 
sill, ‘-hut the pink balsam is dead again.” 

“ What can you mean by ‘ dead again * ” ? said a vexed 
but clear voice within. “ It can not be dead but once, of 
course.” 

“ We have had a good many balsams,” replied Bro apolo- 
getically, “ and even a good many pink ones, like this ; I for- 
get sometimes.” 

“ That is because you have no real love for flowers,” said 
the irate young mistress from her dish-pan : she was provoked 
at the loss of the balsam — it was her last one. 

Bro, who could not see her from where he stood, waited a 
moment or two, shuffled his feet to and fro on the sand, and 
noiselessly drummed on the sill with his long fingers ; then 
he went slowly down to the shore, where his boat was drawn 
up, and rowed himself across to the saw-mill. He felt a sort 
of guilt about that pink balsam, as though he had not per- 
haps taken enough care of it ; but, in truth, he had watched 
every . hair’s-breadth of its limp, reluctant growth, knew its 
moist veining accurately, and even the habits and opinions, as 


“BRO.” 


229 


it were, of two minute green inhabitants, with six legs, of the 
size, taken both together, of a pin’s point, who considered the 
stalk quite a prairie. 

When she was eighteen and nineteen years old, Marion 
Manning had refused several suitors, giving as a reason to 
her mother that they were all detestable ; since then, she had 
not been troubled with suitors to refuse. There were girls 
with more coloring and brighter eyes in Wilbarger, and girls 
with warmer hearts : so said the gossips. And, certainly, 
the calm reserve, the incisive words, and clear gray eyes that 
looked straight at you of Marion Manning were not calculated 
to encourage the embarrassed but at the same time decidedly 
favor-conferring attentions of the youths of the town. Mrs. 
Manning, in the course of the years they had been together, 
had gradually taken Bro as a humble confidant : he knew of 
the offers and refusals ; he knew of the succeeding suitorless 
period which Mrs. Manning, a stanch believer in lc e and 
romance, bewailed as wasted time. “ / could never have re- 
sisted young Echols,” she said, “ sitting there on the door-step 
as he used to, with the sun shining on his curly hair. But 
there ! I always had a fancy for curls.” Bro received these 
confidences with strict attention, as valuable items. But one 
peculiarity of his mind was that he never generalized ; and 
thus, for instance, instead of taking in the fact that curly hair 
plays a part in winning a heart, he only understood that Mrs. 
Manning, for some reason or other, liked kinks and twists in 
the covering of the head ; as some persons liked hempen 
shoestrings, others leathern. 

“ But Miss Marion is happy,” he said once, when the suit- 
orless period was two years old, and the mother lament- 
ing. 

“Yes; but we can not live our lives more than once, Bro, 
and these years will never come back to her. What keeps 
me up through all the privations I have suffered but the mem- 
ory of the short but happy time of my own courtship and 
marriage ? ” Here Mrs. Manning shed tears. The memory 


230 


“ BRO.” 


must, indeed, have been a strong one, the unregenerated hu- 
morist would have thought, to “ keep up ” such a weight as 
hers. But Bro was not a humorist : that Mrs. Manning was 
fat was no more to him than that he himself was lean. He 
had the most implicit belief in the romance of her life, upon 
which she often expatiated ; he knew all about the first time 
she saw him, and how she felt ; he knew every detail of the 
courtship. This was only when Marion was absent, how- 
ever ; the mother, voluble as she was, said but little on that 
subject when her daughter was in the room. 

“ But Miss Marion is happy,” again said Bro, when the 
suitorless period was now five years old. 

“ No, she is not,” replied the mother this time. “ She be- 
gins to feel that her life is colorless and blank ; I can see she 
does. She is not an ordinary girl, and needlework and house- 
keeping do not content her. If she had an orphan asylum to 
manage, now, or something of that kind — But, dear me ! 
what would suit her best, I do believe, would be drilling a 
regiment,” added Mrs. Manning, her comfortable amplitude 
heaving with laughter. “ She is as straight as a ramrod al- 
ways, for all her delicate, small bones. What she would like 
best of all, I suppose, would be keeping accounts ; she will 
do a sum now rather than any kind of embroidery, and a 
page of figures is fairly meat and drink to her. That Miss 
Drough has, I fear, done her more harm than good : you can 
not make life exactly even, like arithmetic, nor balance quan- 
tities, try as you may. And, whatever variety men may suc- 
ceed in getting, we women have to put up with a pretty 
steady course of subtraction, I notice.” 

“ I am sorry you do not think she is happy,” said Bro 
thoughtfully. 

“ There you go ! ” said Mrs. Manning. “ I do not mean 
that she is exactly chappy ; but you never understand 
things, Bro.” 

“ I know it ; I have had so little experience,” said the 
other. But Bros experience, large or small, was a matter of 


no interest to Mrs. Manning, who rambled on about her 
daughter. 

“The Mannings were always slow to develop, Edward 
used to say : I sometimes think Marion is not older now at 
heart than most girls of eighteen. She has always been more 
like the best scholar, the clear-headed girl at the top of the 
class, than a woman with a woman’s feelings. She will be 
bitterly miserable if she falls in love at last, and all in vain. 
An old maid in love is a desperate sight." 

“ What do you call an old maid ? ” asked Bro. 

“ Any unmarried woman over — well, I used to say twen- 
ty-five, but Marion is that, and not much faded yet — say 
twenty-eight,” replied Mrs. Manning, decisively, having to 
the full the Southern ideas on the subject. 

“ Then Miss Marion has three years more ? ” 

“ Yes ; but, dear me ! there is no one here she will look 
at. What I am afraid of is, that, after I am dead and gone, 
poor Marion, all thin and peaked (for she does not take after 
me in flesh), with spectacles on her nose, and little wrinkles 
at the comers of her eyes, will be falling in love with some 
one who will not care for her at all. I should say a clergy- 
man,” pursued Mrs. Manning meditatively, “only Marion 
hates clergymen ; a professor, then, or something of the kind. 
If I only had money enough to take her away and give her a 
change ! She might see somebody then who would not wind 
his legs around his chair.” 

“ Around his chair? ” 

“ Yes,” said Mrs. Manning, beginning on another knitting- 
needle. “ Have you not noticed how all the young men about 
here twist their feet around the legs of their chairs, especially 
when telling a long story or at table ? Sometimes it is one 
foot, sometimes the other, and sometimes both, which I ac- 
knowledge is awkward. What pleasure they find in it I 
can not imagine ; I should think it would be dislocating. 
Young Harding, now, poor fellow ! had almost no fault but 
that.” 


232 


" BRO.” 


“ And Miss Marion dislikes it ? I hope I do not do it 
then,” said Bro simply. 

“ Well, no,” replied Mrs. Manning. “ You see, your feet 
are rather long, Bro.” 

They were ; it would have taken a giant’s chair to give 
them space enough to twist. 

So Bro’s life went on : the saw-mill to give him bread and 
clothes, Mrs. Manning to listen to, the flowers to water, and, 
at every other leisure moment night and day, his inventions. 
For there were several, all uncompleted : a valve for a steam- 
engine, an idea for a self-register, and, incidentally, a screw. 
He had most confidence in the valve ; when completed, it 
would regenerate the steam-engines of the world. The self- 
register gave him more trouble ; it haunted him, but would 
not come quite right. He covered pages of paper with cal- 
culations concerning it. He had spent about twenty thousand 
hours, all told, over that valve and register during his eleven 
years at the saw-mill, and had not once been tired. He had 
not yet applied for patents, although the screw was complete. 
That was a trifle: he would wait for his more important 
works. 

One day old Mr. Vickery, having watched the superinten- 
dent roll safely past down the road on his way to Bridge No. 
2, left his charge in the care of old Julius for the time being, 
and walked up the track toward Wilbarger. It was the 
shortest road to the village— indeed, the only road ; but one 
could go by water. Before the days of the railroad, the 
Vickerys always went by water, in a wide-cushioned row- 
boat, with four pairs of arms to row. It was a great day, of 
course, when the first locomotive came over Vickery Marsh ; 
but old Mr. Vickery was lamentably old-fashioned, and pre- 
ferred the small days of the past, with the winding, silver 
channels and the row-boat, and the sense of wide possession 
and isolation produced by the treeless, green expanse which 
separated him from the town. To-day, however, he did not 
stop to think of these things, but hastened on as fast as his 


" BROr 


2 33 

short legs could carry him. Mrs. Manning was an old friend 
of his ; to her house he was hurrying. 

“You are both — you are both,” he gasped, bursting into 
the sitting-room and sinking into a chair — “ you are both — 
ah, ugh ! ugh ! ” 

He choked, gurgled, and turned from red to purple. Mrs. 
Manning seized a palm-leaf fan, and fanned him vigorously. 

“ Why did you walk so fast, Mr. Vickery ? ” she said re- 
proachfully. “ You know your short breath can not stand it.” 

“You would, too, Nannie,” articulated the old man, “if — 
\i your boy had come home !” 

“ What, Lawrence ? You do not mean it ! ” she exclaimed, 
sinking into a chair in her turn, and fanning herself now. “ I 
congratulate you, Mr. Vickery ; I do, indeed. How long is it 
since you have seen him ? ” 

“ Thirteen years ; thir — teen years ! He was fifteen when 
he went away, you know,” whispered the old man, still giving 
out but the husky form of words without any voice to support 
them. “ Under age, but would go. Since then he has been 
wandering over the ocean and all about, the bold boy ! ” 

“ Dear me ! ” said Mrs. Manning; “ how glad I shall be to 
see him ! I was very fond of his mother.” 

“ Yes ; Sally was a sweet little woman, and Lawrence 
takes after his mother more than after his father, I see. My 
son was a true Vickery; yes, a true Vickery. But what I 
came to say was, that you and Marion must both come over 
to-morrow and spend the day. We must kill the fatted calf, 
Nannie — indeed we must.” 

Then, with his first free breath, the old man was obliged 
to go, lest the superintendent should return unexpectedly and 
find him absent. There was also the fatted calf to be pro- 
vided : Julius must go across to the mainland and hunt down 
a wild turkey. 

At dinner Mrs. Manning had this great news to tell her 
listener — two now, since Marion had returned. 

“ Who do you think has come home ? ” she said, enjoying 


234 


" BRO.” 


her words as she spoke them. “ Who but old Mr. Vickery’s 
grandson, Lawrence, his only living grandchild ! He went 
away thirteen years ago, and one of the sweetest boys I ever 
knew he was then. — You remember him, Marion.” 

“ I remember a boy,” answered Marion briefly. “ He 
never would finish any game, no matter what it was, but 
always wanted to try something new.” 

“ Like his mother,” said Mrs. Manning, heaving a reminis- 
cent sigh, and then laughing. “Sally Telfair used to change 
about the things in her work-basket and on her table every 
day of her life. Let me see — Lawrence must be twenty-eight 
now.” 

“ He has come back, I suppose, to take care of his grand- 
father in his old age,” said Bro, who was eating his dinner in 
large, slow mouthfuls, in a manner which might have been 
called ruminative if ruminating animals were not generally 
fat. 

“ Yes, of course,” replied Mrs. Manning, with her com- 
fortable belief in everybody’s good motives. 

When Marion and her mother returned home the next 
day at dusk a third person was with them as they walked 
along the track, their figures outlined clearly against the orange 
after-glow in the west. Bro, who had come across for his tea, 
saw them, and supposed it was young Vickery. He supposed 
correctly. Young Vickery came in, staid to tea, and spent 
the evening. Bro, as usual, went over to the mill. The next 
day young Vickery came again, and the next ; the third day 
the Mannings went over to the island. Then it began over 
again. ' 

“ I do hope, Bro, that your dinners have been attended to 
properly,” said Mrs. Manning, during the second week of 
these visitations. 

“ Oh, yes, certainly,” replied Bro, who would have eaten 
broiled rhinoceros unnoticingly. 

“ You see Mr. Vickery has the old-time ideas about com- 
pany and visiting to celebrate a great occasion, and Lawrence’s 


“ BROr 


2 35 

return is, of course, that. It is a perfect marvel to hear where, 
or rather where not, that young man has been.” 

“ Where ? ” said Bro, obediently asking the usual question 
which connected Mrs. Manning’s narratives, and gave them a 
reason for being. 

“ Everywhere. All over the wide world, I should say.” 

“ Oh, no, mother ; he was in Germany most of the time,” 
said Marion. 

“ He saw the Alps, Marion.” 

“ The Bavarian Alps.” 

“And he saw France.” 

“ From the banks of the Moselle.” 

“ And Russia, and Holland, and Bohemia,” pursued Mrs. 
Manning. “You will never make me believe that one can 
see all those countries from Germany, Marion. Germany was 
never of so much importance in my day. And to think, too, 
that he has lived in Bohemia ! I must ask him about it. I 
# have never understood where it was, exactly ; but I have 
heard persons called Bohemians who had not a foreign look 
at all.” 

“ He did not live in Bohemia, mother.” 

, “ Oh, yes, he did, child ; I am sure I heard him say so.” 

“ You are thinking of Bavaria.” 

“ Marion ! Marion ! how can you tell what I am thinking 
of ? ” said Mrs. Manning oracularly. “ There is no rule of 
arithmetic that can tell you that. But here is Lawrence him- 
self at the door. — You have lived in Bohemia, have you not ? ” 
she asked, as the young man entered : he came in and out 
now like one of the family. “ Marion says you have not.” 

“ Pray, don’t give it up, but stick to that opinion. Miss 
Marion,” said the young man, with a merry glint in his eyes. 
Ah ! yes, young Vickery had wandered, there was no doubt 
of it ; he used contractions, and such words as “ stick.” Mrs. 
Manning and Marion had never said “don’t” or “can’t” in 
their lives. 

“ I do not know what you mean,” replied Marion, a slight 


236 


“ BRO.” 


color rising in her cheeks. " It is not a matter of opinion one 
way or the other, but of fact. You either have lived in Bohe- 
mia, or you have not.” 

" Well, then, I have,” said Vickery, laughing. 

“ There ! Marion,” exclaimed Mrs. Manning triumphantly. 

Vickery, overcome by mirth, turned to Bro, as if for re- 
lief ; Bro was at least a man. 

But Bro returned his gaze mildly, comprehending nothing. 

"Going over to the mill?” said Vickery. "I’ll go with 
you, and have a look about.” 

They went off together, and Vickery examined the mill 
from top to bottom ; he measured the logs, inspected the en- 
gine, chaffed the negroes, climbed out on the roof, put his 
head into Bro’s cell-like bedroom, and came at last to the 
locked door. 

" What have we here ? ” he asked. 

" Only a little workshop of mine, which I keep locked,” 
replied Bro. 

“ So I see. But what’s inside ? ” 

“ Nothing of much consequence — as yet,” replied the other, 
unable to resist adding the adverb. 

"You must let me in,” said Vickery, shaking the door. 
“ I never could abide a secret. Come, Bro ; I won’t tell. Let 
me in, or I shall climb up at night and break in,” he added 
gayly. 

Bro stood looking at him in silence. Eleven years had he 
labored there alone, too humble to speak voluntarily of his 
labors ; -too insignificant, apparently, for questions from others. 
Although for the most part happy over his work, there were 
times when he longed for a friendly ear to talk to, for other 
eyes to criticise, the sympathy of other minds, the help of 
other hands. At these moments he felt drearily lonely over 
his valve and register ; they even seemed to mock him. He 
was not imaginative, yet occasionally they acted as if moved 
by human motives, and, worse still, became fairly devilish in 
their crooked perverseness. Nobody had ever asked before 


to go into that room. Should he ? Should he not ? Should 
he ? Then he did. 

Lawrence, at home everywhere, sat on a high stool, and 
looked on with curiosity while the inventor brought out his 
inventions and explained them. It was a high day for Bro : 
new life was in him ; he talked rapidly ; a dark color burned 
in his thin cheeks. He talked for one hour without stopping, 
the buzz of the great saw below keeping up an accompani- 
ment ; then he paused. 

“ How do they seem to you ? ” he asked feverishly. 

“Well, I have an idea that self-registers are about all they 
can be now ; I have seen them in use in several places at the 
North,” said Lawrence. “ As to the steam-valve, I don’t 
know ; there may be something in it. But there is no doubt 
about that screw : for some uses it is perfect, better than any- 
thing we have, I should say.” 

“ Oh, the screw ? ” said the other man, in a slow, disap- 
pointed voice. “ Yes, it is a good screw ; but the valve — ” 

“Yes, as you say, the valve,” said Lawrence, jumping 
down from his stool, and looking at this and that carelessly 
on his way to the door. “ I don’t comprehend enough of the 
matter, Bro, to judge. But you send up that screw to Wash- 
ington at once and get a patent out on it ; you will make 
money, I know.” 

He was gone ; there was nothing more to see in the saw- 
mill, so he paddled across, and went down toward the dock. 
The smoke of a steamer coming in from the ocean could be 
seen ; perhaps there would be something going on down 
there. 

“He is certainly a remarkably active young fellow,” said 
Mrs. Manning, as she saw the top of his head passing, the 
path along-shore being below the level of the cottage. “ He 
has seen more in Wilbarger already than I have ever seen 
here in all my life.” 

“ We are, perhaps, a little old-fashioned, mother,” replied 
Marion. 


238 


“ BRO.” 


“Perhaps we are, child. Fashions always were a long 
time in reaching Wilbarger. But there ! what did it matter ? 
We had them sooner or later, though generally later. Still, 
bonnets came quite regularly. But I have never cared much 
about bonnets,” pursued Mrs. Manning reflectively, “ since 
capes went out, and those sweet ruches in front, full of little 
rose-buds. There is no such thing now as a majestic bon- 
net.” 

Bro came over to tea as usual. He appeared changed. 
This was remarkable ; there had never been any change in 
him before, as far back as they could remember. 

“ You are surely not going to have a fever? ” asked Mrs. 
Manning anxiously, skilled in fever symptoms, as are all 
dwellers on that shore. 

“ No ; I have been a little overturned in mind this after- 
noon, that is all,” replied Bro. Then, with a shadow of im- 
portance, “ I am obliged to write to Washington.” 

“What do you mean?” asked Mrs. Manning, for once 
assuming the position of questioner. 

“ I have invented a — screw,” he answered, hesitatingly — 
“ a screw, which young Mr. Vickery thinks a good one. I 
am going to apply for a patent on it.” 

“ Dear me ! Apply for a patent ? Do you know how ? ” 

“ Yes, I know how,” replied the inventor quietly. 

Marion was looking at him in surprise; 

“ You invented the screw, Ambrose ? ” 

“ Yes, Miss Marion.” Then, unable to keep down his 
feelings any longer— “ But there is a valve also,” he added 
with pride, “ which seems to me more important ; and there 
is a self-register.” 

“Lawrence was over there this evening, was he not? 
And you showed him your inventions then ? ” 

“ Yes, Miss Marion, I did.” 

“ But why in the world, Bro, have you not told us, or, in- 
deed, any one, about them all these years ? ” interposed Mrs. 
Manning, surveying her listener with new eyes. 


“You did not ask; nobody has ever asked. Mr. Vickery 
is the only one.” 

“ Then it was Lawrence who advised you to write to 
Washington ? ” said Marion. 

“ Yes.” 

“ You will take me over to the mill immediately,” said the 
girl, rising ; “ I wish to see everything. — And, mother, will 
you come, too ? ” 

“ Certainly,” replied Mrs. Manning, with a determination 
to go in spite of her avoirdupois, the darkness, the row-boat, 
and the steep mill-stairs. She was devoured by curiosity, and 
performed the journey without flinching. When they reached 
the work-room at last, Bro, in his excitement, lighted all the 
lamps he had in the mill and brought them in, so that the 
small place was brilliant. Mrs. Manning wondered and ejac- 
ulated, tried not to knock over small articles, listened, com- 
prehended nothing, and finally took refuge mentally with the 
screw and physically in an old arm-chair ; these two things at 
least she understood. Marion studied the valve a long time, 
listening attentively to Bro’s eager explanations. “ I can 
make nothing of it,” she said at last, in a vexed tone. 

“ Neither could Mr. Vickery,” said Bro. 

She next turned to the register, and, before long, caught 
its idea. 

" It is not quite right yet, for some reason,” explained the 
inventor, apologetically. 

She looked over his figures. 

“ It is plain enough why it is not right,” she said, after a 
moment, in her schoolmistress tone. “Your calculations are 
wrong. Give me a pencil.” She went to work at once, and 
soon had a whole sheet covered. “ It will take me some 
time,” she said, glancing up at the end of a quarter of an 
hour. “ If you are tired, mother, you had better go back.” 

“ I think I will,” said Mrs. Manning, whose mind was now 
on the darkness and the row-boat. Bro w’ent with her, and 
then returned. The mother no more thought of asking her 


240 


“ BRO." 


daughter to leave a column of unfinished figures than of ask- 
ing a child to leave an unfinished cake. 

“ Do not interrupt me now, but sit down and wait,” said 
Marion, without looking up, when Bro came back. He 
obeyed, and did not stir ; instead, he fell to noticing the effect 
of her profile against the red cloth over the window. It took 
Marion longer than she expected to finish the calculation ; 
h<& cheeks glowed over the work. “ There ! ” she said at 
last, throwing down the pencil and pushing the paper toward 
him. She had succeeded ; the difficulty was practically at an 
end. Bro looked at the paper and at her with admiring pride. 

“ It is your invention now,” he said. 

“ Oh, no ; I only did the sum for you. Astronomers often 
have somebody to do the sums for them.” 

“ I shall apply for patents on all three now,” said Bro ; 
“ and the register is yours, Miss Marion. In eleven years I 
have not succeeded in doing what you have just done in an 
hour.” 

“ So much the worse for you, Ambrose,” replied Marion 
lightly. She was quite accustomed to his praise, she had had 
it steadily from childhood. If not always gracefully expressed, 
at least it was always earnest ; but, like Ambrose, of no con- 
sequence. 

Bro made his application in due form. Young Vickery 
volunteered to write to an acquaintance in Washington, a 
young lawyer, who aspired to “ patent business,” asking him, 
as he expressed it, to “ see Bro through.” “ No sharp prac- 
tice in this case, Dan,” he wrote privately. “ Cranch is poor, 
and a friend of friends of mine ; do your best for him.” 

But, although he thus good-naturedly assisted the man, he 
laughed at the woman for her part in the figures, which Bro 
had related with pride. 

“ What will you do next? ” he said. “ Build a stone wall 
— or vote ? Imagine a girl taking light recreation in equa- 
tions, and letting her mind wander hilariously among groves 
of triangles on a rainy day ! ” 


“ BRO.” 


241 


Marion colored highly, but said nothing. Her incisiveness 
seemed to fail her when with Lawrence Vickery. And, as he 
was never more than half in earnest, it was as hard to use 
real weapons against him as to fence with the summer wind. 
The young man seemed to have taken a fancy to Bro ; he spent 
an hour or two at the saw-mill almost every day, and Caesar had 
become quite accustomed to his voice shouting for the boat. 
But the old negro liked him, and came across cheerfully, e\%n 
giving him voluntarily the title “ marse,” which the blacks with- 
held whenever they pleased now, and tenaciously. Vickery 
took Bro over to see his grandfather, the old house, and the 
wastes which were once their cotton-fields. He had no pride 
about the old gentleman’s lowly office ; he had roamed about 
the world too much for that. And, when Bro suggested that 
he should take the position himself and relieve his grandfather, 
he answered carelessly that his grandfather did not want to 
be relieved, which was true — old Mr. Vickery deriving the only 
amusement of his life now in plans for outwitting, in various 
small ways, the spirited superintendent. 

“ However,” said Lawrence, “ I could not in any case ; I 
have plans of importance waiting for me.” 

“ Where ? ” asked Bro. 

“ Well — abroad. I don’t mind telling/^,” said Vickery; 
“ but it is a secret at present.” 

“ Then you do not intend to stay here ? ” 

“ Here ? Bless you, no ! The place is a howling, one- 
horse desert. I only came back awhile to see the old man.” 

The “ while ” lasted all winter. Young Vickery exhausted 
the town, the island, and the whole district ; he was “ hail 
fellow ” with everybody, made acquaintance with the light- 
house-keeper, knew the captains of all the schooners, and 
even rode on the hand-car and was admitted to the friendship 
of the superintendent. But, in the way of real intimacy, the 
cottage and the saw-mill were his favorite haunts. He was 
with Marion a part of every day ; he teased her, laughed at 
her flowers, mimicked her precise pronunciation, made cari- 
ir 


242 


“ BRO.” 


catures of her friend Miss Drough, and occasionally walked 
by with Nannie Barr, the most consummate little flirt in the 
town. Marion changed — that is, inwardly. She was too 
proud to alter her life outwardly, and, beyond putting away 
the chess-problem book, and walking with Miss Drough in 
quiet paths through the andromeda and smilax thickets, or 
out on the barrens among the saw-palmettoes, rather than 
through the streets of the town, what she did was the same 
as usual. But she was not what she had been. She seemed 
to have become timid, almost irresolute ; she raised her eyes 
quickly and dropped them as quickly : the old calm, steady 
gaze was gone ; her color came and went. She was still erect 
as ever : she could not change that ; but she seemed disposed 
to sit more in the shadow, or half behind the curtain, or to 
withdraw to her own room, where the bolt was now often 
used which had formerly rusted in its place. Bro noticed all 
this. Marion’s ways had not been changeable like those of 
most girls, and he had grown into knowing them exactly : 
being a creature of precise habit himself, he now felt uncom- 
fortable and restless because she was so. At last he spoke to 
her mother. “ She is certainly changed : do you think there 
is any danger of fever ? ” he asked uneasily. But Mrs. Man- 
ning only blinked and nodded smilingly back in answer, hold- 
ing up her finger to signify that Marion was within hearing. 
Supposing that he had comprehended her, of course, and glad 
to have a confidant, she now blinked and nodded at him from 
all sides — from behind doors, from over Marion’s head, from 
out of the windows, even throwing her confidential delight to 
him across the river as he stood in the saw-mill doorway. 
Marion, then, was going through something — something not 
to be mentioned, but only mysteriously nodded — which was 
beneficial to her ; what could it be ? She had taken to going 
very frequently to church lately, in spite of her dislike to “ the 
worm,” who still occupied the pulpit. Bro went back to the 
experience of his youth in the up-country, the only experience 
he had to go back to, and decided that she must be having 


" BROr 


243 

what they used to call there “ a change of heart.” Upon 
mentioning this in a furtive tone to Mrs. Manning, she 
laughed heartily, rather to his surprise, for he was a reverent 
sort of non-churchgoing pagan, and said, “ Very good, Bra- 
very good, indeed ! ” 

He decided that he had guessed rightly ; the Episcopalian 
was, he had heard, a very cheerful kind of religion, tears and 
groaning not being required of its neophytes. 

But his eyes were to be opened. The last trump could 
not have startled him more than something he saw with his 
own eyes one day. It happened in this way : There was an 
accident on the wharf ; a young man was crushed between 
the end of the dock and the side of the steamer ; some one 
came running to the cottage and said it was Lawrence Vick- 
ery. Mrs. Manning, the hands at the mill, and even old Di- 
nah, started off at once ; the whole town was hurrying to the 
scene. Bro, shut up in his workroom, going over his beloved 
valve again, did not hear or see them. It was nearly dinner- 
time, and, when he came out and found no boat, he was sur- 
prised ; but he paddled himself across on a rude raft he had, 
and went up to the cottage. The doors stood open all over 
the house as the hasty departures had left them, and he heard 
Marion walking up and down in her room up stairs, sobbing 
aloud and wildly. He had never heard her sob before ; even 
as a child she had been reticent and self-controlled. He 
stood appalled at the sound. What could it betoken ? He 
stole to the foot of the stairs and listened. She was moaning 
Lawrence’s name over and over to herself — “ Lawrence ! 
Lawrence ! Lawrence ! ” He started up the stairs, hardly 
knowing what he was doing. Her grief was dreadful to him : 
he wanted to comfort her, but did not know how. He hardly 
realized what the cry meant. But it was to come to him. 
The heart-broken girl, who neither saw nor heard him, al- 
though he was now just outside the door, drew a locket from 
her bosom and kissed it passionately with a flood of despair- 
ing, loving words. Then, as if at the end of her strength, 


244 


“ BROr 


with a sigh like death, she sank to the floor lifeless ; she had 
fainted. 

After a moment the man entered. He seemed to himself 
to have been standing outside that door for a limitless period 
of time ; like those rare, strange sensations we feel of having 
done the same thing or spoken the same words before in 
some other and unknown period of existence. He lifted Ma- 
rion carefully and laid her on a lounge. As he moved her, 
the locket swung loose against her belt on the long ribbon 
which was fastened underneath her dress around her throat. 
It was a clumsy, old-fashioned locket, with an open face, and 
into its small frame she herself had inserted a photograph of 
Lawrence Vickery, cut from a carte de visite. Bro saw it : 
the open face of the locket was toward him, and he could not 
help seeing. It occurred to him then vaguely that, as she had 
worn it concealed, it should be again hidden before other eyes 
saw it — before she could know that even his had rested upon 
it. With shaking fingers he took out his knife, and, opening 
its smallest blade, he gently severed the ribbon, took off the 
locket, and put it into her pocket. It was surprising to see 
how skillfully his large, rough hands did this. Then, with an 
afterthought, he found a worn place in the ribbon’s end, and 
severed it again by pulling it apart, taking the cut portion 
away with him. His idea was, that she would think the rib- 
bon had parted of itself at the worn spot, and she did think 
so. It was a pretty, slender little ribbon, of bright rose-color. 
When all was finished, he went to seek assistance. He knew 
no more what to do for her physically than he would have 
known what to do for an angel. Although there was not the 
faintest sign of consciousness, he had carefully refrained from 
even touching her unnecessarily in the slightest degree : it 
seemed to him profanation. But there was no one in the 
house. He went to the gate, and there caught sight of Mrs. 
Manning hurrying homeward across the sandy waste. 

“ It is all a mistake,” she panted, with the tears still drop- 
ping on her crimson cheeks. “ It was not Lawrence at all, 


“ BROr 


2 45 

but young Harding. Lawrence has gone down the road with 
the superintendent ; but poor young Harding is, I fear, fatally 
injured.” 

Even then automatic memory brought to Bros mind only 
the idea, “ He will never twist his feet around chair-legs any- 
more ! It was almost the only fault he had, poor fellow ! ” 

“ Miss Marion is not quite well, I think,” he said. “ I 
heard her crying a little up stairs as I came in.” 

“ Of course,” said the mother, “ poor child ! But it is all 
over now. — It was not Lawrence at all, Marion,” she cried 
loudly, hurrying up the path to the doorway ; “ it was only 
young Harding.” 

Love has ears, even in semi-death, and it heard that cry. 
When Mrs. Manning, breathless, reached her daughter’s 
room, she found her on the lounge still, but with recovered 
consciousness, and even palely smiling. The picture was 
safely in her pocket ; she supposed, when she found it, that 
she must have placed it there herself. She never had any 
suspicion of Bro’s presence or his action. 

The saw-miller had disappeared. Mrs. Manning sup- 
posed that he, in his turn, had gone to the dock or to the 
Harding cottage. 

When he came in to tea that night he looked strangely, 
but was able to account for it. 

“ Letters from Washington,” he said. Then he paused ; 
they looked at him expectantly. “ The idea of the register is 
not a new one,” he added slowly ; “ it has already been pat- 
ented.” 

“ My inheritance is gone, then,” said Marion gayly. 

She spoke without reflection, being so happy now in the 
reaction of her great relief that she was very near talking 
nonsense, a feminine safety-valve which she hardly ever be- 
fore had had occasion to seek. 

“ Yes,” said Bro, a pained quiver crossing his face for an 
instant. “ The valve also is pronounced worthless,” he added 
in a monotonous voice. 


“ BRO." 


246 

Mother and daughter noticed his tone and his lifeless 
look ; they attributed it to his deep, bitter disappointment, 
and felt sorry for him. 

“ But the screw, Bro ? ” said Mrs. Manning. 

“ That is successful, I believe ; the patent is granted.” 

“ I knew it,” she replied triumphantly. “ Even / could 
see the great merits it had. I congratulate you, Bro.” 

“So do I,” said Marion. She would have congratulated 
anybody that evening. 

“ The valve is a disappointment to me,” said the man, 
speaking steadily, although dully. “ I had worked over it so 
long that I counted upon it as certain.” 

Then he rose and went over to the mill. 

In the mean time Lawrence Vickery was riding homeward 
comfortably on the hand-car, and had no idea that he was 
supposed to be dead. But he learned it ; and learned some- 
thing else also from Marion’s sensitive, tremulous face, deli- 
cate as a flower. A warm-hearted, impulsive fellow, he was 
touched by her expression, and went further than he intended. 
That is to say, that, having an opportunity, thanks to Mrs. 
Manning, who went up stairs, purposely leaving them alone 
together, he began by taking Marion’s hand reassuringly, and 
looking into her eyes, and ended by having her in his arms 
and continuing to look into her eyes, but at a much nearer 
range. In short, he put himself under as firm betrothal bonds 
as ever a man did in the whole history of betrothals. 

In the mean time the soft-hearted mother, sitting in the 
darkness up stairs, was shedding tears tenderly, and thinking 
of her own betrothal. That Lawrence was poor was a small 
matter to her, compared with the fact that Marion was loved 
at last, and happy. Lawrence was a Vickery, and the son of 
her old friend ; besides, to her, as to most Southern women, 
the world is very well lost for the sake of love. 

Ai*d Bro, over at the saw-mill ? 

His red lights shone across the marsh as usual, and he 
was in his work-room; in his hand was the model of his 


“ BROr 


247 


valve. He had made it tell a lie that night ; he had used it as 
a mask. He gazed at it, the creature of his brain, his com- 
panion through long years, and he felt that he no longer cared 
whether it was good for anything or not ! Then he remem- 
bered listlessly that it was good for nothing ; the highest au- 
thorities had said so. But, gone from him now was the com- 
prehension of their reasons, and this he began to realize. He 
muttered over a formula, began a calculation, both well known 
to him ; he could do neither. His mind strayed from its duty 
idly, as a loose bough sways in the wind. He put his hands 
to his head and sat down. He sat there motionless all night. 

But oh, how happy Marion was ! Not effusively, not spo- 
kenly, but internally ; the soft light shining out from her heart, 
however, as it does through a delicate porcelain shade. Old 
Mr. Vickery was delighted too, and a new series of invitations 
followed in honor of the betrothal ; even the superintendent 
was invited, and came on his hand-car. Bro was included 
also, but he excused himself. His excuses were accepted 
without insistence, because it was understood that he was al- 
most heart-broken by his disappointments. Joy and sorrow 
meet. When the engagement had lasted five weeks, and Ma- 
rion had had thirty-five days of her new happiness, the old 
grandfather died, rather suddenly, but peacefully, and without 
pain. Through a long, soft April day he lay quietly looking 
at them all, speechless but content ; and then at sunset he 
passed away. Mrs. Manning wept heartily, and Marion too ; 
even Lawrence was not ashamed of the drops on his cheeks 
as he surveyed the kind old face, now for ever still. Every- 
body came to the funeral, and everybody testified respect ; 
then another morning broke, and life went on again. The 
sun shines just the same, no matter who has been laid in the 
earth, and the flowers bloom. This seems to the mourner a 
strange thing, and a hard. In this case, however, there was 
no one to suffer the extreme pain of violent separation, for all 
the old man’s companions and contemporaries were already 
gone ; he was the last. 


248 


“BRO.” 


Another month went by, and another ; the dead heats of 
summer were upon them. Marion minded them not ; scorch- 
ing air and arctic snows were alike to her when Lawrence 
was with her. Poor girl ! she had the intense, late-coming 
love of her peculiar temperament : to please him she would 
have continued smiling on the rack itself until she died. But 
why, after all, call her “ poor ” ? Is not such love, even if un- 
returned, great riches ? 

Bro looked at her, and looked at her, and looked at her. 
He had fallen back into his old way of life again, and nobody 
noticed anything unusual in him save what was attributed to 
his disappointment. 

“ You see he had shut himself up there, and worked over 
that valve for years,” explained Mrs. Manning ; “ and, not let- 
ting anybody know about it either, he had come to think too 
much of it, and reckon upon it as certain. He was always 
an odd, lonely sort of man, you know, and this has told upon 
him heavily.” 

By and by it became evident that Lawrence was restless. 
He had sold off what he could of his inheritance, but that 
was only the old furniture ; no one wanted the sidling, unre- 
paired house, which was now little better than a shell, or the 
deserted cotton-fields, whose dikes were all down. He had a 
scheme for going abroad again ; he could do better there, he 
said ; he had friends who would help him. 

“ Shall you take Miss Marion ? ” asked Bro, speaking un- 
expectedly, and, for him, markedly. They were all present. 

“ Oh, no,” said Lawrence, “ not now. How could I ? 
But I shall come back for her soon.” He looked across at his 
betrothed with a smile. But Marion had paled suddenly, and 
Bro had seen it. 

The next event was a conversation at the mill. 

Young Vickery wandered over there a few days later. He 
■was beginning to feel despondent and weary : everything at 
Wilbarger was at its summer ebb, and the climate, too, af- 
fected him. Having become really fond of Marion now, and 


“BRO.” 


24.9 


accustomed to all the sweetness of her affection, he hated to 
think of leaving her; yet he must. He leaned against the 
window-sill, and let out disjointed sentences of discontent to 
Bro ; it even seemed a part of his luck that it should be dead 
low water outside as he glanced down, and all the silver chan- 
nels slimy. 

“ That saw makes a fearful noise,” he said. 

“ Come into my room,” said Bro ; “ you will not hear it so 
plainly there.” It was not the work-room, but the bedroom. 
The work-room was not mentioned now, out of kindness to 
Bro. Lawrence threw himself down on the narrow bed, and 
dropped his straw hat on the floor. “ The world’s a miser- 
able hole,” he said, with unction. 

Bro sat down on a three-legged stool, the only approach 
to a chair in the room, and looked at him ; one hand, in the 
pocket of his old, shrunk linen coat, was touching a let- 
ter. 

“ Bah ! ” said Lawrence, clasping his hands under his head 
and stretching himself out to his full length on the bed, “ how 
in the world can I leave her, Bro ? Poor little thing ! ” 

Now to Bro, to whom Marion had always seemed a cross 
between a heavenly goddess and an earthly queen, this epithet 
was startling; however, it was, after all, but a part of the 
whole. 

“ It is a pity that you should leave her,” he replied slowly. 
“ It would be much better to take her with you.” 

“ Yes, I know it would. Lam a fickle sort of fellow, too, 
and have all sorts of old entanglements over there, besides. 
They might take hold of me again.” 

Bro felt a new and strange misgiving, which went through 
three distinct phases, with the strength and depth of an ocean, 
in less than three seconds : first, bewilderment at the new 
idea that anybody could be false to Marion ; second, a wild, 
darting hope for himself ; third, the returning iron conviction 
that it could never be, and that, if Lawrence deserted Marion, 
she would die. 


250 


“ BRO.” 


“ If you had money, what would you do ? ” he asked, com- 
ing back to the present heavily. 

“ Depends upon how much it was.” 

“ Five thousand dollars ? ” 

“ Well — I’d marry on that, but not very hilariously, old 
fellow.” 

“Ten?” 

“ That would do better.” 

Nothing has as yet been said of Lawrence Vickery’s ap- 
pearance. It will be described now, and will, perhaps, throw 
light backward over this narration. 

Imagine a young man, five feet eleven inches in height, 
straight, strong, but slender still, in spite of his broad shoul- 
ders ; imagine, in addition, a spirited head and face, bright, 
steel-blue eyes, a bold profile, and beautiful mouth, shaded by 
a golden mustache ; add to this, gleaming white teeth, a dim- 
ple in the cleft, strongly molded chin, a merry laugh, and a 
thoroughly manly air; and you have Lawrence Broughton 
Vickery at twenty-eight. 

When at last he took himself off, and went over to see 
Marion and be more miserable still, Bro drew the letter from 
his pocket, and read it for the sixth or seventh time. During 
these months his screw had become known, having been 
pushed persistently by the enterprising young lawyer who as- 
pired to patent business in the beginning, and having held its 
own since by sheer force of merit. The enterprising young 
lawyer had, however, recently forsaken law for politics ; he 
had gone out to one of the Territories with the intention of 
returning some day as senator when the Territory should be 
a State (it is but fair to add that his chance is excellent). But 
he had, of course, no further knowledge of the screw, and 
Bro now managed the business himself. This letter was from 
a firm largely engaged in the manufacture of machinery, and 
it contained an offer for the screw and patent outright — ten 
thousand dollars. 

“ I shall never invent anything more,” thought Bro, the 


“ bro: 


251 


words of the letter writing themselves vacantly on his brain. 
“ Something has gone wrong inside my head in some way, 
and the saw-mill will be all I shall ever attend to again." 

Then he paused. 

“ It would be worth more money in the end if I could keep 
it," he said to himself. “ But even a larger sum might not 
serve so well later, perhaps.” It was all to be Marion’s in 
either case — which would be best? Then he remembered 
her sudden pallor, and that decided him. “ He shall have it 
now," he said. “ How lucky that he was content with ten ! ” 

Some men would have given the money also in the same 
circumstances ; but they would have given it to Marion. It 
was characteristic of Bros deep and minute knowledge of the 
girl, and what would be for her happiness, that he planned to 
give the money to the man, and thus weight down and steady 
the lighter nature. 

He dwelt a long time upon ways and means ; he was sev- 
eral days in making up his mind. At last he decided what to 
do ; and did it. 

Three weeks afterward a letter came to Wilbarger, di- 
rected in a clear handwriting to “ Mr. Lawrence Broughton 
Vickery." It was from a Northern lawyer, acting for another 
party, and contained an offer for Vickery Island with its 
house, cotton-fields, and marsh ; price offered, ten thousand 
dollars. The lawyer seemed to be acquainted with the size 
of the island, the condition of the fields and out-buildings ; 
he mentioned that the purchase was made with the idea of 
reviving the cotton-culture immediately, similar attempts on 
the part of Rhode Island manufacturers, who wished to raise 
their own cotton, having succeeded on the sea-islands farther 
north. Lawrence, in a whirl of delight, read the letter aloud 
in a cottage-parlor, tossed it over gayly to Mrs. Manning, and 
clasped Marion in his arms. 

“ Well, little wife," he said happily, stroking her soft hair, 
“ we shall go over the ocean together now.” 

And Bro looked on. 


252 


“ BRO." 


The wedding took place in the early autumn. Although 
comparatively quiet, on account of old Mr. Vickery’s death, 
all Wilbarger came to the church, and crowded into the cot- 
tage afterward. By a happy chance, “ the worm ” was at the 
North, soliciting aid for his “ fold,” and Marion was married 
by a gentle little missionary, who traversed the watery coast- 
district in a boat instead of on horseback, visiting all the sea- 
islands, seeing many sad, closed little churches, and encoun- 
tering not infrequently almost pure paganism and fetich-wor- 
ship among the neglected blacks. Bro gave the bride away. 
It was the proudest moment of his life — and the saddest. 

“ Somebody must do it,” Mrs. Manning had said ; “ and 
why not Bro ? He has lived in our house for twelve years, 
and, after all, now that old Mr. Vickery is gone, he is in one 
way our nearest friend. — Do let me ask him, Marion.” 

“ Very well,” assented the bride, caring but little for any- 
thing now but to be with Lawrence every instant. 

She did, however, notice Bro during the crowded although 
informal reception which followed the ceremony. In truth, 
he was noticeable. In honor of the occasion, he had ordered 
from Savannah a suit of black, and had sent the measure- 
ments himself ; the result was remarkable, the coat and vest 
being as much too short for him as the pantaloons were too 
long. He wore a white cravat, white-cotton gloves so large 
that he looked all hands, and his button-hole was decked with 
flowers, as many as it could hold. In this garb he certainly 
was an extraordinary object, and his serious face appearing at 
the top made the effect all the more grotesque. Marion was 
too good-hearted to smile ; but she did say a word or two in 
an undertone to Lawrence, and the two young people had their 
own private amusement over his appearance. 

But Bro was unconscious of it, or of anything save the 
task he had set for himself. It was remarked afterward that 
“ really Bro Cranch talked almost like other people, joked and 
laughed, too, if you will believe it, at that Manning wedding.” 

Lawrence promised to bring his wife home at the end of a 


“ BRO." 


2 53 


year to see her mother, and perhaps, if all went well, to take 
the mother back with them. Mrs. Manning, happy and sad 
together, cried and smiled in a breath. But Marion was ra- 
diant as a diamond ; her gray eyes flashed light. Not even 
when saying good-by could she pretend to be anything but 
supremely happy, even for a moment. By chance Bro had 
her last look as the carriage rolled away ; he went over to the 
mill carrying it with him, and returned no more that night. 

Wilbarger began to wonder after a while when that Rhode 
Island capitalist would begin work in his cotton-fields ; they 
are wondering still. In course of time, and through the 
roundabout way he had chosen, Bro received the deeds of 
sale ; he made his will, and left them to Marion. Once Mrs. 
Manning asked him about the screw. 

“ I have heard nothing of it for some time,” he replied ; 
and she said no more, thinking it had also, like the valve, 
proved a failure. In the course of the winter the little work- 
room was dismantled and the partitions taken down ; there is 
nothing there now but the plain wall of the mill. The red 
lights no longer shine across the marsh to Vickery Island, and 
there is no one there to see them. The new keeper lives in a 
cabin at the bridge, and plays no tricks on the superintendent, 
who, a man of spirit still, but not quite so sanguine as to the 
future of Wilbarger, still rolls by on his hand-car from north- 
east to southeast. 

Bro has grown old ; he is very patient with everybody. 
Not that he ever was impatient, but that patience seems now 
his principal characteristic. He often asks to hear portions of 
Marion’s letters read aloud, and always makes gently the final 
comment : “ Yes, yes ; she is happy ! ” 

It is whispered around Wilbarger that he “has had a 
stroke ” ; Mrs. Manning herself thinks so. 

Well, in a certain sense, perhaps she is right. 


? 


KING DAVID. 


I met a traveler on the road ; 

His face was wan, his feet were weary ; 

Yet he unresting went with such 
A strange, still, patient mien — a look 
Set forward in the empty air, 

As he were reading an unseen book. 

Richard Watson Gilder. 


The scholars were dismissed. Out they trooped — big 
boys, little boys, and full-grown men. Then what antics — 
what linked lines of scuffling ; what double shuffles, leaps, 
and somersaults ; what rolling laughter, interspersed with 
short yelps and guttural cries, as wild and free as the sounds 
the mustangs make, gamboling on the plains ! For King 
David’s scholars were black — black as the ace of spades. He 
did not say that ; he knew very little about the ace. He said 
simply that his scholars were “ colored ” ; and sometimes he 
called them “ the Children of Ham.” But so many mistakes 
were made over this title, in spite of his careful explanations 
(the Children having an undoubted taste for bacon), that he 
finally abandoned it, and fell back upon the national name of 
“freedmen,” a title both good and true. He even tried to 
make it noble, speaking to them often of their wonderful lot 
as the emancipated teachers and helpers of their race ; laying 
before them their mission in the future, which was to go over 
to Africa, and wake out of their long sloth and slumber the 
thousands of souls there. But Cassius and Pompey had only 
a mythic idea of Africa ; they looked at the globe as it was 
turned around, they saw it there on the other side, and then 


KING DAVID . 


255 

their attention wandered off to an adventurous ant who was 
making the tour of Soudan and crossing the mountains of 
Kong as though they were nothing. 

Lessons over, the scholars went home. The schoolmaster 
went home too, wiping his forehead as he went. He was a 
grave young man, tall and thin, somewhat narrow-chested, 
with the diffident air of a country student. And yet this 
country student was here, far down in the South, hundreds of 
miles away from the New Hampshire village where he had 
thought to spend his life as teacher of the district school. 
Extreme near-sightedness and an inherited delicacy of con- 
stitution which he bore silently had kept him out of the field 
during the days of the war. “ I should be only an encum- 
brance/' he thought. But, when the war was over, the fire 
which had burned within burst forth in the thought, “The 
freedmen ! ” There was work fitted to his hand ; that one 
thing he could do. “ My turn has come at last,” he said. 
“ I feel the call to go.” Nobody cared much because he was 
leaving. “ Going down to teach the blacks ? ” said the farm- 
ers. “ I don’t see as you’re called, David. We’ve paid dear 
enough to set 'em free, goodness knows, and now they ought 
to look out for themselves.” 

“ But they must first be taught,” said the schoolmaster. 
“ Our responsibility is great ; our task is only just begun.” 

“ Stuff ! ” said the farmers. What with the graves down 
in the South, and the taxes up in the North, they were not 
prepared to hear any talk about beginning. Beginning, in- 
deed ! They called it ending. The slaves were freed, and it 
was right they should be freed ; but Ethan and Abner were 
gone, and their households were left unto them desolate. Let 
the blacks take care of themselves. 

So, all alone, down came David King, with such aid and 
instruction as the Freedman’s Bureau could give him, to this 
little settlement among the pines, where the freedmen had 
built some cabins in a careless way, and then seated them- 
selves to wait for fortune. Freedmen! Yes; a glorious 


256 


KING DAVID . 


idea ! But how will it work its way out into practical life ? 
What are you going to do with tens of thousands of ignorant, 
childish, irresponsible souls thrown suddenly upon your hands ; 
souls that will not long stay childish, and that have in them 
also all the capacities for evil that you yourselves have — you 
with your safeguards of generations of conscious responsibility 
and self-government, and yet— so many lapses ! This is what 
David King thought. He did not see his way exactly ; no, 
nor the nation’s way. But he said to himself : “ I can at least 
begin ; if I am wrong, I shall find it out in time. But now it 
seems to me that our first duty is to educate them.” So he 
began at “ a, b, and c ” ; “You must not steal ” ; “ You must 
not fight”; “You must wash your faces”; which may be 
called, I think, the first working out of the emancipation 
problem. 

Jubilee Town was the name of the settlement ; and when 
the schoolmaster announced his own, David King, the title 
struck the imitative minds of the scholars, and, turning it 
around, they made “ King David ” of it, and kept it so. De- 
lighted with the novelty, the Jubilee freedmen came to school 
in such numbers that the master was obliged to classify them ; 
boys and men in the mornings and afternoons ; the old people 
in the evenings ; the young women and girls by themselves 
for an hour in the early morning. “ I can not do full justice 
to all,” he thought, “ and in the men lies the danger, in the 
boys the hope ; the women can not vote. Would to God the 
men could not either, until they have learned to read and to 
write, and to maintain themselves respectably ! ” For, aboli- 
tionist as he was, David King would have given years of his 
life for the power to restrict the suffrage. Not having this 
power, however, he worked at the problem in the only way 
left open : “ Take two apples from four apples, Julius— how 
many will be left?” “What is this I hear, Caesar, about 
stolen bacon ? ” 

On this day the master went home, tired and dispirited ; 
the novelty was over on both sides. He had been five months 


KING DAVID. 


257 

at Jubilee, and his scholars were more of a puzzle to him than 
ever. They learned, some of them, readily ; but they forgot 
as readily. They had a vast capacity for parrot-like repeti- 
tion, and caught his long words so quickly, and repeated them 
so volubly, with but slight comprehension of their meaning, 
that his sensitive conscience shrank from using them, and he 
was forced back upon a rude plainness of speech which was 
a pain to his pedagogic ears. Where he had once said, 
“ Demean yourselves with sobriety,” he now said, “ Don’t get 
drunk.” He would have fared better if he had learned to 
say “ uncle ” and “ aunty,” or “ maumer,” in the familiar 
Southern fashion. But he had no knowledge of the customs ; 
how could he have ? He could only blunder on in his slow 
Northern way. 

His cabin stood in the pine forest, at a little distance from 
the settlement; he had allowed himself that grace. There 
was a garden around it, where Northern flowers came up 
after a while — a little pale, perhaps, like English ladies in In- 
dia, but doubly beautiful and dear to exiled eyes. The school- 
master had cherished from the first a wish for a cotton-field 
— a cotton-field of his own. To him a cotton-field repre- 
sented the South — a cotton-field in the hot sunshine, with a 
gang of slaves toiling under the lash of an overseer. This 
might have been a fancy picture, and it might not. At any 
rate, it was real to him. There was, however, no overseer 
now, and no lash ; no slaves and very little toil. The negroes 
would work only when they pleased, and that was generally 
not at all. There was no doubt but that they were almost 
hopelessly improvident and lazy. “ Entirely so,” said the 
planters. “ Not quite,” said the Northern schoolmaster. And 
therein lay the difference between them. 

David lighted his fire of pitch-pine, spread his little table, 
and began to cook his supper carefully. When it was nearly 
ready, he heard a knock at his gate. Two representative 
specimens of his scholars were waiting without — Jim, a field- 
hand, and a woman named Esther, who had been a house- 


258 


KING DAVID. 


servant in a planter’s family. Jim had come “ to borry an 
axe,” and Esther to ask for medicine for a sick child. 

“ Where is your own axe, Jim ? ” said the schoolmaster. 

“ Somehow et’s rusty, sah. Dey gets rusty mighty 
quick.” 

“ Of course, because you always leave them out in the 
rain. When will you learn to take care of your axes ? ” 

“ Don’ know, mars.” 

“ I have told you not to call me master,” said David. “ I 
am not your master.” 

“ You’s schoolmars, I reckon,” answered Jim, grinning at 
his repartee. 

“ Well, Jim,” said the schoolmaster, relaxing into a smile, 
“ you have the best of it this time ; but you know quite well 
what I mean. You can take the axe; but bring it back to- 
night. And you must see about getting a new one immedi- 
ately ; there is something to begin with. — Now, Esther, what 
is it? Your boy sick? Probably it is because you let him 
drink the water out of that swampy pool. I warned you.” 

“ Yes, sah,” said the woman impassively. 

She was a slow, dull-witted creature, who had executed 
her tasks marvelously well in the planter’s family, never vary- 
ing by a hair’s breadth either in time or method during long 
years. Freed, she was lost at once; if she had not been 
swept along by her companions, she would have sat down 
dumbly by the wayside, and died. The schoolmaster offered 
supper to both of his guests. Jim took a seat at the table at 
once, nothing loath, and ate and drank, talking all the time 
with occasional flashes of wit, and an unconscious suggestion 
of ferocity in the way he hacked and tore the meat with his 
clasp-knife and his strong white teeth. Esther stood ; no- 
thing could induce her to sit in the master’s presence. She 
ate and drank quietly, and dropped a courtesy whenever he 
spoke to her, not from any especial respect or gratitude, how- 
ever, but from habit. “ I may possibly teach the man some- 
thing,” thought the schoolmaster ; " but what a terrible crea- 


KING DAVID. 


259 


ture to turn loose in the world, with power in his hand ! 
Hundreds of these men will die, nay, must die violent deaths 
before their people can learn what freedom means, and what 
it does not mean. As for the woman, it is hopeless ; she can 
not learn. But her child can. In truth, our hope is in the 
children.” 

And then he threw away every atom of the food, washed 
his dishes, made up the fire, and went back to the beginning 
again and cooked a second supper. For he still shrank from 
personal contact with the other race. A Southerner would 
have found it impossible to comprehend the fortitude it re- 
quired for the New-Englander to go through his daily rounds 
among them. He did his best ; but it was duty, not liking. 
Supper over, he went to the schoolhouse again : in the even- 
ings he taught the old people. It was an odd sight to note 
them as they followed the letters with a big, crooked forefin- 
ger, slowly spelling out words of three letters. They spelled 
with their whole bodies, stooping over the books which lay 
before them until their old grizzled heads and gay turbans 
looked as if they were set on the table by the chins in a 
long row. Patiently the master taught them ; they had gone 
no further then “ cat ” in five long months. He made the 
letters for them on the blackboard again and again, but the 
treat of the evening was the making of these letters on the 
board by the different scholars in turn. “ Now, Dinah — B.” 
And old Dinah would hobble up proudly, and, with much 
screwing of her mouth and tongue, and many long hesita- 
tions, produce something which looked like a figure eight 
gone mad. Joe had his turn next, and he would make, per- 
haps, an H for a D. The master would go back and explain 
to him carefully the difference, only to find at the end of ten 
minutes that the whole class was hopelessly confused : Joe’s 
mistake had routed them all. There was one pair of spec- 
tacles among the old people : these were passed from hand 
to hand as the turn came, not from necessity always, but as 
an adjunct to the dignity of reading. 


260 


KING DAVID. 


“Never .mind the glasses, Tom. Surely you can spell 
‘ bag ’ without them.” 

“Dey helps, Mars King David,” replied old Tom with 
solemn importance. He then adorned himself with the spec- 
tacles, and spelled it — “ g, a, b.” 

But the old people enjoyed their lesson immensely; no 
laughter, no joking broke the solemnity of the scene, and 
they never failed to make an especial toilet — much shirt-col- 
lar for the old men, and clean turbans for the old women. 
They seemed to be generally half-crippled, poor old crea- 
tures ; slow in their movements as tortoises, and often un- 
wieldy ; their shoes were curiosities of patches, rags, strings, 
and carpeting. But sometimes a fine old black face v/as 
lifted from the slow-moving bulk, and from under wrinkled 
eyelids keen sharp eyes met the master’s, as intelligent as his 
own. 

There was no church proper in Jubilee. On Sundays, the 
people, who were generally Baptists, assembled in the school- 
room, where services were conducted by a brother who had 
“ de gif’ ob preachin’,” and who poured forth a flood of Scrip- 
ture phrases with a volubility, incoherence, and earnestness 
alike extraordinary. Presbyterian David attended these ser- 
vices, not only for the sake of example, but also because he 
steadfastly believed in “ the public assembling of ourselves 
together for the worship of Almighty God.” 

“ Perhaps they understand him,” he thought, noting the 
rapt black faces, “ and I, at least, have no right to judge 
them — I, who, with all the lights I have had, still find myself 
unable to grasp the great doctrine of Election.” For David 
had been bred in Calvinism, and many a night, when younger 
and more hopeful of arriving at finalities, had he wrestled 
with its problems. He was not so sure, now, of arriving at 
finalities either in belief or in daily life ; but he thought the 
fault lay with himself, and deplored it. 

The Yankee schoolmaster was, of course, debarred from 
intercourse with those of his own color in the neighborhood. 


KING DAVID. 


261 


There were no “ poor whites ” there ; he was spared the sight 
of their long, clay-colored faces, lank yellow hair, and half- 
open mouths ; he was not brought into contact with the igno- 
rance and dense self-conceit of this singular class. The 
whites of the neighborhood were planters, and they regarded 
the schoolmaster as an interloper, a fanatic, a knave, or a 
fool, according to their various degrees of bitterness. The 
phantom of a cotton-field still haunted the master, and he 
often walked by the abandoned fields of these planters, and 
noted them carefully. In addition to his fancy, there was 
now another motive. Things were not going well at Jubilee, 
and he was anxious to try whether the men would not w r ork 
for good wages, paid regularly, and for their Northern teacher 
and friend. Thus it happened that Harnett Ammerton, re- 
tired planter, one afternoon perceived a strange.r walking up 
the avenue that led to his dilapidated mansion ; and as he 
was near-sighted, and as any visitor was, besides, a welcome 
interruption in his dull day, he went out upon the piazza to 
meet him ; and not until he had offered a chair did he rec- 
ognize his guest. He said nothing ; for he was in his own 
house ; but a gentleman can freeze the atmosphere around 
him even in his own house, and this he did. The school- 
master stated his errand simply : he wished to rent one of the 
abandoned cotton-fields for a year. The planter could have 
answered with satisfaction that his fields might lie for ever 
untilled before Yankee hands should touch them ; but he was 
a poor man now, and money was money. He endured his visit- 
or, and he rented his field ; and, with the perplexed feelings of 
his class, he asked himself how it was, how it could be, that a 
man like that — yes, like that — had money, while he himself had 
none ! David had but little money— a mere handful to throw 
away in a day, the planter would have thought in the lavish 
old times ; but David had the New England thrift. 

“ I am hoping that the unemployed hands over at Jubilee 
will cultivate this field for me,” he said — “ for fair wages, of 
course. I know nothing of cotton myself.” 


262 


KING DAVID . 


“ You will be disappointed,” said the planter. 

“ But they must live ; they must lay up something- for the 
winter.” 

“ They do not know enough to live. They might exist, 
perhaps, in Africa, as the rest of their race exists ; but here, 
in this colder climate, they must be taken care of, worked, 
and fed, as we work and feed our horses — precisely in the 
same way.” 

“ I can not agree with you,” replied David, a color rising 
in his thin face. “ They are idle and shiftless, I acknowledge 
that ; but is it not the natural result of generations of servi- 
tude and ignorance ? ” 

“ They have not capacity for anything save ignorance.” 

“You do not know then, perhaps, that I — that I am try- 
ing to educate those who are over at Jubilee,” said David. 
There w’as no aggressive confidence in his voice ; he knew 
that he had accomplished little as yet. He looked wistfully 
at his host as he spoke. 

Harnett Ammerton was a bom patrician. Poor, homely, 
awkward David felt this in every nerve as he sat there ; for 
he loved beauty in spite of himself, and in spite of his belief 
that it was a tendency of the old Adam. (Old Adam has 
such nice things to bother his descendants with ; almost a 
monopoly, if we are to believe some creeds.) So now David 
tried not to be influenced by the fine face before him, and 
steadfastly went on to sow a little seed, if possible, even upon 
this prejudiced ground. 

“ I have a school over there,” he said. 

“ I have heard something of the kind, I believe,” replied 
the old planter, as though Jubilee Town were a thousand 
miles away, instead of a blot upon his own border. “ May I 
ask how you are succeeding ? ” 

There was a fine irony in the question. David felt it, 
but replied courageously that success, he hoped, would come 
in time. 

“ And I, young man, hope that it will never come ! The 


KING DAVID. 


263 

negro with power in his hand, which you have given him, 
with a little smattering of knowledge in his shallow, crafty 
brain — a knowledge which you and your kind are now striv- 
ing to give him — will become an element of more danger in 
this land than it has ever known before. You Northerners 
do not understand the blacks. They are an inferior race by 
nature; God made them so. And God forgive those (al- 
though I never can) who have placed them over us — yes, 
virtually over us, their former masters — poor ignorant crea- 
tures ! ” 

At this instant an old negro came up the steps with an 
armful of wood, and the eye of the Northerner noted (was 
forced to note) the contrast. There sat the planter, his head 
crowned with silver hair, his finely chiseled face glowing with 
the warmth of his indignant words ; and there passed the old 
slave, bent and black, his low forehead and broad animal fea- 
tures seeming to typify scarcely more intelligence than that 
of the dog that followed him. The planter spoke to the ser- 
vant in his kindly way as he passed, and the old black face 
lighted with pleasure. This, too, the schoolmaster’s sensitive 
mind noted : none of his pupils looked at him with anything 
like that affection. “ But it is right they should be freed — it 
A right,” he said to himself as he walked back to Jubilee; 
“ and to that belief will I cling as long as I have my being. 
It is right.” And then he came into Jubilee, and found three 
of his freedmen drunk and quarreling in the street. 

Heretofore the settlement, poor and forlorn as it was, had 
escaped the curse of drunkenness. No liquor was sold in the 
vicinity, and David had succeeded in keeping his scholars 
from wandering aimlessly about the country from place to 
place — often the first use the blacks made of their freedom. 
Jubilee did not go to the liquor; but, at last, the liquor had 
come to Jubilee. Shall they not have all rights and privileges, 
these new-born citizens of ours? The bringer of these doc- 
trines, and of the fluids to moisten them, was a white man, 
one of that class which has gone down on the page of Ameri- 


264 


KING DAVID . 


can history, knighted with the initials C. B. “ The Captain ” 
the negroes called him ; and he was highly popular already, 
three hours of the Captain being worth three weeks of Da- 
vid, as far as familiarity went. The man was a glib-tongued, 
smartly dressed fellow, well supplied with money ; and his 
errand was, of course, to influence the votes at the next elec- 
tion. David, meanwhile, had so carefully kept all talk of 
politics from his scholars that they hardly knew that an elec- 
tion was near. It became now a contest between the two 
higher intelligences. If the schoolmaster had but won the 
easily won and strong affections of his pupils ! But, in all 
those months, he had gained only a dutiful attention. They 
did not even respect him as they had respected their old mas- 
ters, and the cause (poor David !) was that very thrift and in- 
dustry which he relied upon an an example. 

“Ole Mars Ammerton wouldn’t wash his dishes ef dey 
was nebber washed,” confided Maum June to Elsy, as they 
caught sight of David’s shining pans. 

The schoolmaster could have had a retinue of servants 
for a small price, or no price at all ; but, to tell a truth which 
he never told, he could not endure them about him. 

“ I must have one spot to myself,” he said feverishly, after 
he had labored all day among, them, teaching, correcting un- 
tidy ways, administering simple medicines, or binding up a 
bruised foot. But he never dreamed that this very isolation 
of his personality, this very thrift, were daily robbing him of 
the influence which he so earnestly longed to possess. In 
New England every man’s house was his castle, and every 
man's hands were thrifty. He forgot the easy familiarity, the 
lordly ways, the crowded households, and the royal careless- 
ness to which the slaves had always been accustomed in their 
old masters’ homes. 

At first the Captain attempted intimacy. 

“ No reason why you and me shouldn’t work together,” 
he said with a confidential wink. “ This thing’s being done 
all over the South, and easy done, too. Now’s the time for 


KING DAVID. 


265 

smart chaps like us — ‘ transition,’ you know. The old South- 
erners are mad, and won’t come forward, so we’ll just sail in 
and have a few years of it. When they’re ready to come 
back — why, we’ll give ’em up the place again, of course, if 
our pockets are well lined. Come, now, just acknowledge 
that the negroes have got to have somebody to lead ’em.” 

“ It shall not be such as you,” said David indignantly. 
“ See those two men quarreling ; that is the work of the liquor 
you have given them ! ” 

“ They’ve as good a right to their liquor as other men 
have,” replied the Captain carelessly ; “ and that’s what I tell 
’em ; they ain’t slaves now — they’re free. Well, boss, sorry 
you don’t like my idees, but can’t help it ; must go ahead. 
Remember, I offered you a chance, and you would not take it. 
Morning.” 

The five months had grown into six and seven, and Jubi- 
lee Town was known far and wide as a dangerous and disor- 
derly neighborhood. The old people and the children still 
came to school, but the young men and boys had deserted in 
a body. The schoolmaster’s cotton-field was neglected ; he 
did a little there himself every day, but the work was novel, 
and his attempts were awkward and slow. One afternoon 
Harnett Ammerton rode by on horseback ; the road passed 
near the angle of the field where the schoolmaster was at 
work. 

“ How is your experiment succeeding ? ” said the planter, 
with a little smile of amused scorn as he saw the lonely 
figure. 

“ Not very well,” replied David. 

He paused and looked up earnestly into the planter’s face. 
Here was a man who had lived among the blacks all his life, 
and knew them : if he would but give honest advice ! The 
schoolmaster was sorely troubled that afternoon. Should, he 
speak ? He would at least try. 

“ Mr. Ammerton,” he said, “ do you intend to vote at the 
approaching election ? ” 

12 


2 66 


KING DAVID. 


“ No,” replied the planter ; “ nor any person of my ac- 
quaintance.” 

“ Then incompetent, and, I fear, evil-minded men will be 
put into office.” 

“ Of course — the certain result of negro voting.” 

“ But if you, sir, and the class to which you belong, would 
exert yourselves, I am inclined to think much might be done. 
The breach will only grow broader every year; act now, 
while you have still influence left.” 

“ Then you think that we have influence ? ” said the 
planter. 

He was curious concerning the ideas of this man, who, 
although not like the typical Yankee exactly, was yet plainly a 
fanatic ; while as to dress and air — why, Zip, his old valet, had 
more polish. 

“ I know at least that I have none,” said David. Then he 
came a step nearer. “ Do you think, sir,” he began slowly, 
"that I have gone to work in the wrong way? Would it 
have been wiser to have obtained some post of authority over 
them — the office of justice of the peace, for instance, with 
power of arrest ? ” 

“ I know nothing about it,” said the planter curtly, touch- 
ing his horse with his whip and riding on. He had no inten- 
tion of stopping to discuss ways and means with an abolition 
schoolmaster ! 

Things grew from bad to worse at Jubilee. Most of the 
men had been field-hands; there was but little intelligence 
among them. The few bright minds among David’s pupils 
caught the specious arguments of the Captain, and repeated 
them to the others. The Captain explained how much power 
they held ; the Captain laid before them glittering plans ; the 
Captain said that by good rights each family ought to have a 
plantation to repay them for their years of enforced labor ; the 
Captain promised them a four-story brick college for their 
boys, which was more than King David had ever promised, 
teacher though he was. They found out that they were tired 


KING DAVID . 


267 


of King David and his narrow talk ; and they went over to 
Hildore Corners, where a new store had been opened, which 
contained, among other novelties, a bar. This was one of 
the Captain’s benefactions. “ If you pay your money for it, 
you’ve as good a right to your liquor as any one, I guess,” he 
observed. “ Not that it’s anything to me, of course ; but I 
allow I like to see fair play ! ” 

It was something to him, however : the new store had a 
silent partner ; and this was but one of many small and silent 
enterprises in which he was engaged throughout the neigh- 
borhood. 

The women of Jubilee, more faithful than the men, still 
sent their children to school ; but they did it with discouraged 
hearts, poor things ! Often now they were seen with band- 
aged heads and bruised bodies, the result of drunken blows 
from husband or brother ; and, left alone, they were obliged 
to labor all day to get the poor food they ate, and to keep 
clothes on their children. Patient by nature, they lived along 
as best they could, and toiled in their small fields like horses ; 
but the little prides, the vague, grotesque aspirations and 
hopes that had come to them with their freedom, gradually 
faded away. “ A blue-painted front do’,” “ a black-silk apron 
with red ribbons,” “ to make a minister of little Job,” and “ a 
real crock’ry pitcher,” were wishes unspoken now. The thing 
was only how to live from day to day, and keep the patched 
clothes together. In the mean while trashy finery was sold 
at the new store, and the younger girls wore gilt ear-rings. 

The master, toiling on at his vain task, was at his wit’s 
end. “ They Will not work ; before long they must steal,” he 
said. He brooded and thought, and at last one morning he 
came to a decision. The same day in the afternoon he set 
out for Hildore Corners. He had thought of a plan. As he 
was walking rapidly through the pine-woods Harnett Ammer- 
ton on horseback passed him, This time the Northerner 
had no questions to ask — nay, he almost hung his head, so 
ashamed was he of the reputation that had attached itself to 


268 


KING DAVID. 


the field of his labors. But the planter reined in his horse 
when he saw who it was : he was the questioner now. 

“ Schoolmaster," he began, “ in the name of all the white 
families about here, I really must ask if you can do nothing to 
keep in order those miserable, drinking, ruffianly negroes of 
yours over at Jubilee ? Why, we shall all be murdered in our 
beds before long ! Are you aware of the dangerous spirit 
they have manifested lately ? ” 

“ Only too well," said David. 

“ What are you going to do ? How will it end ? " 

“ God knows.” 

“ God knows ! Is that all you have to say ? Of course 
he knows ; but the question is, Do you know ? You have 
brought the whole trouble down upon our heads by your con- 
founded insurrectionary school ! Just as I told you, your ne- 
groes, with the little smattering of knowledge you have given 
them, are now the most dangerous, riotous, thieving, murder- 
ing rascals in the district.” 

“ They are bad ; but it is not the work of the school, I 
hope.” 

“ Yes, it is,” said the planter angrily. 

“ They have been led astray lately, Mr. Ammerton ; a per- 
son has come among them — ” 

“ Another Northerner.” 

“Yes,” said David, a flush rising in his cheek; “but not 
all Northerners are like this man, I trust.” 

“ Pretty much all we see are. Look at the State.” 

“ Yes, I know it ; I suppose time alone can help matters,” 
said the troubled teacher. 

“ Give up your school, and come and join us,” said the 
planter abruptly. “ You, at least, are honest in your mis- 
takes. We are going to form an association for our own pro- 
tection ; join with us. You can teach my grandsons if you 
like, provided you do not put any of your — your fanaticism 
into them.” 

This was an enormous concession for Harnett Ammerton 


KING DA VID. 269 

to make; something in the schoolmaster’s worn face had 
drawn it out. 

“ Thank you,” said David slowly ; “ it is kindly meant, 
sir. But I can not give up my work. I came down to help 
the freedmen, and — ” 

“ Then stay with them,” said the planter, doubly angry 
for the very kindness of the moment before. “ I thought you 
were a decent-living white man, according to your fashion, 
but I see I was mistaken. Dark days are coming, and you 
turn your back upon those of your own color and side with 
the slaves ! Go and herd with your negroes. But, look you, 
sir, we are prepared. We will shoot down any one found 
upon our premises after dark — shoot him down like a dog. 
It has come to that, and, by Heaven ! we shall protect our- 
selves.” 

He rode on. David sat down on a fallen tree for a mo- 
ment, and leaned his head upon his hand. Dark days were 
coming, as the planter had said ; nay, were already there. 
Was he in any way responsible for them ? He tried to think. 
" I know not,” he said at last ; “ but I must still go on and 
do the best I can. I must carry out my plan.” He rose and 
went forward to the Corners. 

A number of Jubilee men were lounging near the new 
store, and one of them was reading aloud from a newspaper 
which the Captain had given him. He had been David’s 
brightest scholar, and he could read readily; but what he 
read was inflammable matter of the worst kind, a speech 
which had been written for just such purposes, and which 
was now being circulated through the district. Mephisto- 
pheles in the form of Harnett Ammerton seemed to whisper 
in the schoolmaster’s ears, “Do you take pride to yourself 
that you taught that man to read ? ” 

The reader stopped ; he had discovered the new auditor. 
The men stared ; they had never seen the master at the Cor- 
ners before. They drew together and waited. He approached 
them, and paused a moment ; then he began to speak. 


2JO 


KING DAVID. 


“ I have come, friends,” he said, “ to make a proposition 
to you. You, on your side, have nothing laid up for the win- 
ter, and I, on my side, am anxious to have your work. I 
have a field, you know, a cotton-field ; what do you say to 
going to work there, all of you, for a month ? I will agree to 
pay you more than any man about here pays, and you shall 
have the cash every Monday morning regularly. We will 
hold a meeting over at Jubilee, and you shall choose your 
own overseer ; for I am very ignorant about cotton-fields ; I 
must trust to you. What do you say ? ” 

The men looked at each other, but no one spoke. 

“ Think of your little children without clothes.” 

Still silence. 

“ I have not succeeded among you,” continued the teacher, 
“ as well as I hoped to succeed. You do not come to school 
any more, and I suppose it is because you do not like me.” 

Something like a murmur of dissent came from the group. 
The voice went on : 

“ I have thought of something I can do, however. I can 
write to the North for another teacher to take my place, and 
he shall be a man of your own race ; one who is educated, 
and, if possible, also a clergyman of your own faith. You 
can have a little church then, and Sabbath services. As soon 
as he comes, I will yield my place to him ; but, in the mean 
time, will you not cultivate that field for me ? I ask it as a 
favor. It will be but for a little while, for, when the new 
teacher comes, I shall go — unless, indeed,” he added, looking 
around with a smile that was almost pathetic in its appeal, 
“ you should wish me to stay.” 

There was no answer. He had thrown out this last little 
test question suddenly. It had failed. 

“ I am sorry I have not succeeded better at Jubilee,” he 
said after a short pause — and his voice had altered in spite of 
his self-control — “ but at least you will believe, I hope, that I 
have tried.” 

“ Dat’s so ” ; “ Dat’s de trouf,” said one or two ; the rest 


KING DAVID. 


271 


stood irresolute. But at this moment a new speaker came 
forward ; it was the Captain, who had been listening in am- 
bush. 

“ All gammon, boys, all gammon,” he began, seating him- 
self familiarly among them on the fence-rail. “ The season 
for planting’s over, and your work would be thrown away in 
that field of his. He knows it, too ; he only wants to see you 
marching around to his whistling. And he pays you double 
wages, does he ? Double wages for perfectly useless work ! 
Doesn’t that show, clear as daylight, what he’s up to ? If he 
hankers so after your future — your next winter, and all that — 
why don’t he give yer the money right out, if he’s so flush ? 
But no ; he wants to put you to work, and that’s all there is 
of it. He can’t deny a word I’ve said, either.” 

“ I do not deny that I wish you to work, friends,” began 
David — 

“ There ! he tells yer so himself,” said the Captain ; “he 
wants yer back in yer old places again. I seen him talking 
to old Ammerton the other day. Give ’em a chance, them 
two classes, and they’ll have you slaves a second time before 
you know it.” 

“ Never ! ” cried David. “ Friends, it is not possible that 
you can believe this man ! We have given our lives to make 
you free,” he added passionately; “we came down among 
you, bearing your freedom in our hands — ” 

“ Come, now — I’m a Northerner too, ain’t I ? ” interrupted 
the Captain. “ There’s two kinds of Northerners, boys. / 
was in the army, and that’s more than he can say. Much 
freedom he brought down in his hands, safe at home in his 
narrer-minded, penny-scraping village ! He wasn’t in the 
army at all, boys, and he can’t tell you he was.” 

This was true *, the schoolmaster could not. Neither could 
he tell them what was also true, namely, that the Captain had 
been an attach i of a sutler’s tent, and nothing more. But the 
sharp-witted Captain had the whole history of his opponent 
at his fingers’ ends. 


2J2 


KING DAVID. 


“ Come along, boys,” said this jovial leader ; “ we’ll have 
suthin’ to drink the health of this tremenjous soldier in— this 
fellow as fought so hard for you and for your freedom. I al- 
ways thought he looked like a fighting man, with them fine 
broad shoulders of his ! ” He laughed loudly, and the men 
trooped into the store after him. The schoolmaster, alone 
outside, knew that his chance was gone. He turned away 
and took the homeward road. One of his plans had failed ; 
there remained now nothing save to carry out the other. 

Prompt as usual, he wrote his letter as soon as he reached 
his cabin, asking that another teacher, a colored man if pos- 
sible, should be sent down to take his place. 

“ I fear I am not fitted for the work,” he wrote. “ I take 
shame to myself that this is so ; yet, being so, I must not hin- 
der by any disappointed strivings the progress of the great 
mission. I will go back among my own kind ; it may be that 
some whom I shall teach may yet succeed where I have failed.” 
The letter could not go until the next morning. He went out 
and walked up and down in the forest. A sudden impulse 
came to him ; he crossed over to the schoolhouse and rang 
the little tinkling belfry-bell. His evening class had disbanded 
some time before ; the poor old aunties and uncles crept off 
to bed very early now, in order to be safely out of the way 
when their disorderly sons and grandsons came home. But 
something moved the master to see them all together once 
more. They came across the green, wondering, and entered 
the schoolroom ; some of the younger wives came too, and 
the children. The master waited, letter in hand. When they 
were all seated — 

“ Friends,” he said, “ I have called you together to speak 
to you of a matter which lies very near my own heart. Things 
are not going on well at Jubilee. The men drink ; the children 
go in rags. Is this true ? ” 

Groans and slow assenting nods answered him. One old 
woman shrieked out shrilly, “ It is de Lord’s will,” and rocked 
her body to and fro. 


KING DAVID. 


273 


“ No, it is not the Lord’s will,” answered the schoolmaster 
gently ; “ you must not think so. You must strive to reclaim 
those who have gone astray ; you must endeavor to inspire 
them with renewed aspirations toward a higher plane of life ; 
you must — I mean,” he said, correcting himself, “ you must 
try to keep the men from going over to the Corners and get- 
ting drunk.” 

“ But dey will do it, sah ; what can we do ? ” said Uncle 
Scipio, who sat leaning his chin upon his crutch and peering 
at the teacher with sharp intelligence in his old eyes. “If 
dey won't stay fo’ you, sah, will dey stay fo’ us ? ” 

“ That is what I was coming to,” said the master. (They 
had opened the subject even before he could get to it ! They 
saw it too, then — his utter lack of influence.) “ I have not 
succeeded here as I hoped to succeed, friends ; I have not the 
influence I ought to have.” Then he paused. “ Perhaps the 
best thing I can do will be to go away,” he added, looking 
quickly from face to face to catch the expression. But there 
was nothing visible. The children stared stolidly back, and 
the old people sat unmoved ; he even fancied that he could 
detect relief in the eyes of one or two, quickly suppressed, 
however, by the innate politeness of the race. A sudden mist 
came over his eyes ; he had thought that perhaps some of 
them would care a little. He hurried on : “I have written to 
the North for a new teacher for you, a man of your own peo- 
ple, who will not only teach you, but also, as a minister, hold 
services on the Sabbath ; you can have a little church of your 
own then. Such a man will do better for y6u than I have 
done, and I hope you will like him ” — he was going to say, 

“ better than you have liked me,” but putting down all thought 
of self, he added, “ and that his work among you will be abun- 
dantly blessed.” 

" Glory ! glory ! ” cried an old aunty. “ A color’d preacher 
ob our own ! Glory ! glory ! ” 

Then Uncle Scipio rose slowly, with the aid of his crutches, 
and, as orator of the occasion, addressed the master. 


274 


KING DAVID. 


“ You see, sah, how it is ; you see, Mars King David,” he 
said, waving his hand apologetically, “ a color’d man will un- 
nerstan us, ’specially ef he hab lib’d at de Souf ; we don t 
want no Nordem free niggahs hyar. But a ’spectable color’d 
preacher, now, would be de makin’ ob Jubilee, fo’ dis worl’ 
an’ de nex’.” 

“ Fo’ dis worl’ and de nex’,” echoed the old woman. 

“ Our service to you, sah, all de same,” continued Scipio, 
with a grand bow of ceremony ; “ but you hab nebber quite 
unnerstan us, sah, nebber quite ; an’ you can nebber do much 
fo’ us, sah, on ’count ob dat fack— ef you’ll scuse my saying 
so. But it is de trouf. We give you our t’anks and our con- 
gratturrurlations, an’ we hopes you’ll go j'yful back to your 
own people, an’ be a shining light to ’em for ebbermore.” 

“ A shinin' light for ebbermore,” echoed the rest. One 
old woman, inspired apparently by the similarity of words, 
began a hymn about “ the shining shore,” and the whole as- 
sembly, thinking no doubt that it was an appropriate and 
complimentary termination to the proceedings, joined in with 
all their might, and sang the whole six verses through with 
fervor. 

“ I should like to shake hands with you all as you go out,” 
said the master, when at last the song was ended, “ and — and 
I wish, my friends, that you would all remember me in your 
prayers to-night before you sleep.” 

What a sight was that when the pale Caucasian, with the 
intelligence of generations on his brow, asked for the prayers 
of these sons of Africa, and gently, nay, almost humbly, re- 
ceived the pressure of their black, toil-hardened hands as they 
passed out ! They had taught him a great lesson, the lesson 
of a failure. 

The schoolmaster went home, and sat far into the night, 
with his head bowed upon his hands. “ Poor worm ! ” he 
thought — “ poor worm ! who even went so far as to dream of 
saying, ‘Here am I, Lord, and these brethren whom thou 
hast given me!”’ 


KING DAVID . 


2 75 


The day came for him to go ; he shouldered his bag and 
started away. At a turn in the road, some one was waiting 
for him ; it was dull-faced Esther with a bunch of flowers, 
the common flowers of her small garden-bed. “ Good-by, 
Esther,” said the master, touched almost to tears by the sight 
of the solitary little offering. 

“ Good-by, mars,” said Esther. But she was not moved ; 
she had come out into the woods from a sort of instinct, as a 
dog follows a little way down the road to look after a depart- 
ing carriage. 

“ David King has come back home again, and taken the 
district school,” said one village gossip to another. 

“ Has he, now? Didn’t find the blacks what he expected, 
I guess.” 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


“ Every rose, you sang, has its thorn ; 

But this has none, I know.” 

She clasped my rival’s rose 
Over her breast of snow. 

I bowed to hide my pain, 

With a man’s unskillful art ; 

I moved my lips, and could not say 
The thorn was in my heart. 

William Dean Howells. 


“ Instead of going through the whole book, you can read 
this abstract, Miss Honor.” 

The speaker drew forth five or six sheets of paper, closely 
covered with fine, small handwriting. The letters were not 
in the least beautiful, or even straight, if you examined them 
closely, for they carried themselves crookedly, and never twice 
alike ; but, owing to their extreme smallness, and the careful 
way in which they stood on the line, rigidly particular as to 
their feet, although their spines were misshapen, they looked 
not unlike a regiment of little humpbacked men, marching 
with extreme precision, and daring you to say that they were 
crooked. Stephen Wainwright had partly taught himself this 
hand, and partly it was due to temperament. He despised a 
clerkly script ; yet he could not wander down a page, or blur 
his words, any more than he could wander down a street, or 
blur his chance remarks ; in spite of himself, he always knew 
exactly where he was going, and what he intended to say. 
He was not a man who attracted attention in any way. He 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


277 


was small, yet not so small as to be noticed for smallness ; he 
was what is called plain-looking, yet without that marked ug- 
liness which, in a man, sometimes amounts to distinction. As 
to his dress, he was too exact for carelessness ; you felt that 
the smallest spot on his loose flannel coat would trouble him ; 
and yet he was entirely without that trim, fresh, spring-morn- 
ing appearance which sometimes gives a small man an advan- 
tage over his larger brethren, as the great coach-dogs seem 
suddenly coarse and dirty when the shining little black-and- 
tan terrier bounds into the yard beside them. Stephen was a 
man born into the world with an over-weight of caution and 
doubt. They made the top of his head so broad and square 
that Reverence, who likes a rounded curve, found herself dis- 
placed ; she clung on desperately through his schoolboy days, 
but was obliged at last to let go as the youth began to try his 
muscles, shake off extraneous substances, and find out what 
he really was himself, after the long succession of tutors and 
masters had done with him. 

The conceit of small men is proverbial, and Stephen was 
considered a living etching of the proverb, without color, but 
sharply outlined. He had a large fortune ; he had a good in- 
tellect ; he had no vices — sufficient reasons, the world said, why 
he had become, at forty, unendurably conceited. His life, the 
world considered, was but a succession of conquests : and the 
quiet manner with which he entered a drawing-room crowded 
with people, or stood apart and looked on, was but another in- 
dication of that vanity of his which never faltered, even in the 
presence of the most beautiful women or the most brilliant men. 
The world had no patience with him. If he had not gone out 
in society at all, if he had belonged to that large class of men 
who persistently refuse to attire themselves in dress-coats and 
struggle through the dance, the world would have understood 
it ; but, on the contrary, Stephen went everywhere, looking 
smaller and plainer than usual in his evening-dress, asked ev- 
erybody to dance, and fulfilled every social obligation with 
painstaking exactitude. The world had no patience with him ; 


278 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


he was like a golden apple hanging low ; but nobody could 
pull him off the branch. 

Stephen's conversation - friend (every unmarried man, 
though an octogenarian, has his conversation-friend) was Ade- 
laide Kellinger, the widow of his cousin and favorite boyhood- 
companion, Ralph Kellinger. Adelaide was now thirty-five 
years of age, an agreeable woman, tall, slender, and exquisitely 
dressed — a woman who made people forget that an arm 
should be round, or a cheek red, when her slim, amber- 
colored gracefulness was present with them. Adelaide’s 
house was Stephen's one lounging-place. Here he came to 
hear her talk over last evening’s party, and here he delivered 
fewer of those concise apropos remarks for which he was 
celebrated, and which had been the despair of a long series of 
young ladies in turn ; for what can you do with a man who, 
on every occasion, even the most unexpected, has calmly ready 
for you a neat sentence, politely delivered, like the charmingly 
folded small parcels which the suave dry-goods clerk hands to 
you across the counter ? Stephen was never in a hurry to 
bring out these remarks of his ; on the contrary, he always 
left every pause unbroken for a perceptible half moment or 
two, as if waiting for some one else to speak. The unwary, 
therefore, were often entrapped into the idea that he was slow 
or unprepared ; and the unwary made a mistake, as the more 
observing among them soon discovered. 

Adelaide Kellinger had studied her cousin for years. The 
result of her studies was as follows : She paid, outwardly, no 
especial attention to him, and she remained perfectly natural 
herself. This last was a difficult task. If he asked a ques- 
tion, she answered with the plainest truth she could imagine ; 
if he asked an opinion, she gave the one she would have given 
to her most intimate woman-friend (if she had had one) ; if 
she was tired, she did not conceal it ; if she was out of tem- 
per, she said disagreeable, sharp-edged things. She was, 
therefore, perfectly natural ? On the contrary, she was ex- 
tremely unnatural. A charming woman does not go around 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


279 

at the present day in a state of nature mentally any more 
than physically ; politeness has become a necessary clothing 
to her. Adelaide Kellinger never spoke to her cousin without 
a little preceding pause, during which she thought over what 
she was going to say ; and, as Stephen was slow to speak 
also, their conversations were ineffective, judged from a dra- 
matic point of view. But Adelaide judged by certain broad 
facts, and left drama to others. Stephen liked to be with her ; 
and he was a creature of habit. She intended that he should 
continue to like to be with her ; and she relied upon that 
habit. 

Afar off, counting by civilization, not by parallels of lati- 
tude, there are mountains in this country' of ours, east of the 
Mississippi, as purple-black, wild, and pathless, some of them, 
as the peaks of the Western sierras. These mountains are 
in the middle South. A few roads climb from the plain be- 
low into their presence, and cautiously follow the small rivers 
that act as guides — a few roads, no more. Here and there are 
villages, or rather farm-centers, for the soil is fertile wherever 
it is cleared ; but the farms are old and stationary : they do 
not grow, stretch out a fence here, or a new field there ; they 
remain as they were when the farmers’ sons were armed and 
sent to swell George Washington’s little army. To this day 
the farmers’ wives spin and weave, and dye and fashion, with 
their own hands, each in her own house, the garments worn 
by all the family ; to this day they have seen nothing move 
by steam. The locomotive waits beyond the peaks ; the wa- 
ter-mill is the highest idea of force. Half a mile from the 
village of Ellerby stands one of these water-mills ; to it come 
farmers and farmers’ boys on horseback, from miles around, 
with grist to be ground. And sometimes the women come 
too, riding slowly on old, pacing cart-horses, their faces hid- 
den in the tubes of deep, long sun-bonnets, their arms mov- 
ing up and down, up and down, as the old horse stretches his 
head to his fore-feet and back with every step. When two 


28 o 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


farm-women meet at the mill-block there is much talking in 
the chipped-off mountain dialect ; but they sit on their horses 
without dismounting, strong, erect, and not uncomely, with 
eyes like eagles’, yet often toothless in their prime, in the 
strange rural- American way, which makes one wonder what 
it was in the life of the negro slaves which gives their grand- 
children now such an advantage in this over the descendants 
alike of the whites of Massachusetts Bay and the plantations 
of the Carolinas. When the farmers meet at the mill-block, 
th^y dismount and sit down in a row, not exactly on their 
heels, but nearly so : in reality, they sit, or squat, on their 
feet, nothing of them touching the ground save the soles of 
their heavy shoes, the two tails of their blue homespun coats 
being brought round and held in front. In this position they 
whittle and play with their whips, or eat the giant apples of 
the mountains. Large, iron-framed men, they talk but slow- 
ly ; they are content apparently to go without those finer 
comprehensions and appreciations which other men covet ; 
they are content to be almost as inarticulate as their horses — 
honest beasts, with few differences save temper and color of 
hide. Across the road from the mill, but within sound and 
sight of its wheel, is Ellerby Library. It is a small wooden 
building, elevated about five feet above the ground, on four 
corner supports, like a table standing on four legs. Daylight 
shines underneath ; and Northern boys, accustomed to close 
foundations, would be seized with temptations to run under 
and knock on the floor : the mountain boys who come to the 
mill, however, are too well acquainted with the peculiarities 
of the library to find amusement in them ; and, besides, this 
barefooted cavalry cherishes, under its homespun jacket, an 
awkward respect for the librarian. 

This librarian is Honor Dooris, and it is to her Stephen 
Wain wright now presents his sheets of manuscript. 

“You think I have an odd handwriting? ” he said. 

“Yes,” answered the librarian; “I should not think you 
would be proud of it.” 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


28 


“lam not.” 

“ Then why not try to change it ? I might lend you my 
old copies — those I used myself and still use. Here they 
are.” And she took from her desk a number of small slips 
of paper, on which were written, in a round hand with many 
flourishes and deeply-shaded lines, moral sentences, such as 
" He that would thrive must rise at five ” ; “ Never put off till 
to-morrow what you can do to-day ” ; and others of like hila- 
rious nature. 

“ Thanks,” said Stephen ; “ I will take the copies, and try 
— to improve.” 

The librarian then began to look through the abstract, 
and Stephen did not break the silence. 

“Would it not be a good idea for me to read it aloud ? ” 
she said, after a while. “ I can always remember what I have 
read aloud.” 

“ As you please,” replied Stephen. 

So the librarian began, in a sweet voice, with a strong 
Southern accent, and read aloud, with frowning forehead and 
evidently but half - comprehension, the chemical abstract 
which Stephen had prepared. 

“ It is very hard,” she said, lobking up at him, with a deep 
furrow between her eyebrows. 

“ But not too hard for a person of determined mind.” 

The person of determined mind answered to the spur im- 
mediately, bent forward over the desk again, and went on 
reading. Stephen, motionless, sat with his eyes fixed on a 
spider’s web high up in the window. When, too deeply puz- 
zled to go on, the girl stopped and asked a question, he an- 
swered it generally without removing his eyes from the web. 
When once or twice she pushed the manuscript away and 
leaned back in her chair, impotent and irritated, he took the 
sheets from her hand, explained the hard parts with clear pre- 
cision, gave them back, and motioned to her to continue. She 
read on for half an hour. When she finished, there was a 
flush on her cheeks, the flush of annoyance and fatigue. 


282 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


“ I must go now,” she said, placing the manuscript in her 
desk, and taking down her broad-brimmed Leghorn hat, yel- 
low as old com, adorned with a plain band of white ribbon. 

“You are not, of course, foiled by a little chemistry,” said 
Wainwright, rising also, and looking at her without change 
of expression. 

“ Oh, no,” she answered ; but still she crossed the room 
and opened the door, as if rather glad to escape, and, with a 
parting salutation, left him. 

Wainwright sat down again. He did not watch her 
through the window ; he took up a late volume of Herbert 
Spencer, opened it at the mark, and began reading with that 
careful dwelling upon each word which is, singularly enough, 
common alike to the scientific and the illiterate. The mass 
of middle-class readers do not notice words at all, but take 
only the general sense. 

Honor went down the road toward Ellerby village, which 
was within sight around the corner, walking at first rapidly, 
but soon falling into the unhurrymg gait of the Southern wo- 
man, so full of natural, swaying grace. At the edge of the 
village she turned and took a path which led into a ravine. 
The path followed a brook, and began to go up hill grad- 
ually ; the ravine grew narrow and the sides high. Where 
the flanks met and formed the main hillside, there was, 
down in the hollow, a house with a basement above ground, 
with neither paint without nor within. No fences were re- 
quired for Colonel Eliot’s domain — the three near hillsides 
were his natural walls, a ditch and plank at the entrance of 
the ravine his moat and drawbridge. The hillsides had Seen 
cleared, and the high corn waved steeply all around and above 
him as he stood in front of his house. It went up to meet 
the sky, and was very good corn indeed — what he could save 
of it. A large portion, however, was regularly stolen by his 
own farm-hands — according to the pleasant methods of South- 
ern agriculture after the war. The Colonel was glad when 
he could safely house one half of it. He was a cripple, hav- 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


283 


ing lost a leg at Antietam. He had married a second wife, 
and had a house overflowing with children. He was poor as 
a squirrel, having a nest in these woods and the corn for nuts, 
and little else besides. He was as brave as a lion, courteous 
as an old cavalier, hot-headed when aroused, but generally 
easy-tempered and cheery. He went to church every Sun- 
day, got down on his one knee and confessed his sins honest- 
ly ; then he came home in the old red wagon, sat on the 
piazza, and watched the corn grow. Honor was his niece ; 
she shared in his love and his poverty like his own children. 
Mrs. Eliot, a dimpled, soft-cheeked, faded woman, did not 
quite like Honor’s office of librarian, even if it did add two 
hundred dollars to their slender income: none of Honor’s 
family, none of her family, had ever been librarians. 

“ But we are so poor now,” said Honor. 

“ None the less ladies, I hope, my dear,” said the elder 
woman, tapping her niece’s shoulder with her pink-tipped, 
taper fingers. 

Honor’s hands, however, showed traces of work. She 
had hated to see them grow coarse, and had cried over them ; 
and then she had gone to church, flung herself down upon 
her knees, offered up her vanity and her roughened palms as 
a sacrifice, and, coming home, had insisted upon washing out 
all the iron pots and saucepans, although old Chloe stood 
ready to do that work with tears in her eyes over her young 
mistress’s obstinacy. It was when this zeal of Honor’s was 
burning brightest, and her self-mortifications were at their 
height — which means that she was eighteen, imaginative, and 
shut up in a box — that an outlet was suddenly presented to 
her. The old library at Ellerby Mill was resuscitated, re- 
opened, endowed with new life, new books, and a new floor, 
and the position of librarian offered to her. 

In former days the South had a literary taste of its own 
unlike anything at the North. It was a careful and correct 
taste, founded principally upon old English authors ; and it 
would have delighted the soul of Charles Lamb, who, being 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE, 


constantly told that he should be more modern, should write 
for posterity, gathered his unappreciated manuscripts to his 
breast, and declared that henceforth he would write only for 
antiquity. Nothing more unmodern than the old-time literary 
culture of the South could well be imagined ; it delighted in 
old editions of old authors ; it fondly turned their pages, and 
quoted their choice passages ; it built little libraries here and 
there, like the one at Ellerby Mill, and loaded their shelves 
with fine old works. In the cities it expanded into associa- 
tions, and large, lofty chambers were filled to the ceiling with 
costly tomes, which now look so dark, and rich, and ancient 
to Northern visitors, accustomed to the lightly bound, cheap 
new books constantly succeeding each other on the shelves of 
Northern libraries. These Southern collections were not for 
the multitude ; there was no multitude. Where plantations 
met, where there was a neighborhood, there grew up the little 
country library. No one was in a hurry ; the rules were leni- 
ent ; the library was but a part of the easy, luxurious way of 
living which belonged to the planters. The books were gen- 
erally imported, an English rather than a New York imprint 
being preferred ; and, without doubt, they selected the classics 
of the world. But they stopped, generally, at the end of the 
last century, often at a date still earlier ; they forgot that there 
may be new classics. 

The library at Ellerby Mill was built by low-country 
planters who came up to the mountains during the warm 
months, having rambling old country-houses there. They 
had their little summer church, St. Mark’s in the Wilderness, 
and they looked down upon the mountain-people, who, plain 
folk themselves, revered the old names borne by their summer 
visitors, names known in their State annals since the earliest 
times. The mountain-people had been so long accustomed 
to see their judges, governors, representatives, and senators 
chosen from certain families, that these offices seemed to 
them to belong by inheritance to those families ; certainly the 
farmers never disputed the right. For the mountain-people 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE . 


285 


were farmers, not planters ; their slaves were few. They 
were a class by themselves, a connecting link between the 
North and the South. The old names, then, placed Ellerby 
Library where it stood full thirty years before Honor was 
born. They did not care for the village, but erected the 
small building at a point about equidistant from their coun- 
try-houses, and near the mill for safety, that boys or idle 
slaves, drawn by the charm which any building, even an 
empty shed, possesses in a thinly settled country, might not 
congregate there on Sundays and holidays, or camp there at 
night. But the library had been closed now for thirteen 
years ; the trustees were all dead, the books moldy, the very 
door-key was lost. The low-country planters no longer came 
up to the mountains ; there were new names in the State an- 
nals, and the mountain-farmers, poorer than before, and much 
bewildered as to the state of the world, but unchanged in 
their lack of the questioning capacity, rode by to and from 
the mill, and gave no thought to the little building with its 
barred shutters standing in the grove. What was there in- 
side ? Nothing save books, things of no practical value, and 
worthless. So the library stood desolate, like an unused light- 
house on the shore; and the books turned blue-green and 
damp at their leisure. 

II. 

Stephen Wainwright traveled, on principle. He had 
been, on principle, through Europe more than once, and 
through portions of Asia and Africa ; in the intervals he made 
pilgrimages through his own country. He was not a languid 
traveler ; he had no affectations ; but his own marked imper- 
sonality traveled with him, and he was always the most indis- 
tinct, unremembered person on every railroad-car or steam- 
boat. He was the man without a shadow. Of course, this 
was only when he chose to step out of the lime-light which 
his wealth threw around His every gesture. But he chose to 
step out of it very often, and always suffered when he did. 


286 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


He was for ever adding up different opinions to find the same 
constantly recurring sum total of “ no consequence.” After 
each experience of the kind he went back into lime-light, and 
played at kingship for a while. He had been doing this for 
twenty years. 

One day he came to Ellerby on the top of the stage. 
Nine Methodist ministers in the inside, returning from a mis- 
sionary meeting, had made the lonely road over the moun- 
tains echo with their hearty hymns. One small brother 
climbed out at the half-way station on the summit, and, after 
drinking copiously from the spring, clasped his hands behind 
him and admired the prospect. Wainwright looked at him, 
not cynically, but with his usual expressionless gaze. The 
little minister drank again, and walked up and down. After 
a few moments he drank a third time, and continued to ad- 
mire the prospect. Wainwright recalled vaguely the Biblical 
injunction, “ Take a little wine for thy stomach’s sake,” when, 
behold ! the small minister drank a fourth time hastily, and 
then, as the driver gathered up the reins, a last and hearty 
fifth time, before climbing up to the top, where Wainwright 
sat alone. 

“ I am somewhat subject to vertigo,” he explained, as he 
took his seat ; “ I will ride the rest of the way in the open air, 
with your permission, sir.” 

Wainwright looked at him. “ Perhaps he was weighting 
himself down with water,” he thought. 

The brother had, indeed, very little else to make weight 
with : his small body was enveloped in a long linen duster, 
his head was crowned with a tall hat ; he might have weighed 
one hundred pounds. He could not brace himself when they 
came to rough places, because his feet did not reach the floor ; 
but he held on manfully with both hands, and begged his 
companion’s pardon for sliding against him so often. 

“ I am not greatly accustomed to the stage,” he said ; “ I 
generally travel on horseback.” 

“ Is there much zeal in your district ? ” said Wainwright. 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


287 


It was the question he always asked when he was placed next 
to a clergyman, varying it only by “parish,” “diocese,” or 
“ circuit,” according to appearances. 

“Zeal,” said his companion — “zeal, sir? Why, there 
isn’t anything else ! ” 

“ I am glad to hear it,” replied Wainwright. 

The little minister took the remark in good faith. 

“ A believer ? ” he asked. 

“ Certainly,” replied Stephen. 

“ Let me shake you by the hand, brother. This is a noble 
country in which to believe. Among these great and solemn 
peaks, who can disbelieve or who go contrary to the will of 
the Lord ? ” 

Stephen made no answer, and the brother, lifting up his 
voice after a silence, cried again, “Who?” And, after a 
moment’s pause, and more fervently, a second “ Who ? ” 
Then a third, in a high, chanting key. It seemed as if he 
would go on for ever. 

“ Well,” said Stephen, “ if you will have answer, I suppose 
I might say the moonlight whisky-makers.” 

The little brother came down from the heights immedi- 
ately, and glanced at his companion. “ Acquainted with the 
country, sir? ” he asked in a business-like tone. 

“ Not at all,” said Stephen. 

“ Going to stay at Ellerby awhile, perhaps ? ” 

“ Perhaps.” 

“ Reckon you will like to ride about ; you will need horses. 
They will cheat you in the village ; better apply to me. Head 
is my name — Bethuel Head ; everybody knows me.” Then 
he shut his eyes and began to sing a hymn of eight or ten 
verses, the brethren below, hearing him chanting alone on 
the top, joining in the refrain with hearty good will. As soon 
as he had finished, he said again, in a whisper, “ Better apply 
to me,” at the same time giving his companion a touch with 
the elbow. Then he leaned over and began a slanting con- 
versation with the brother who occupied the window-seat on 


288 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


his side ; but, whenever he righted himself for a moment, he 
either poked Wainwright or winked at him, not lightly or 
jocularly, but with a certain anxious, concealed earnestness 
which was evidently real. “ Head is my name,” he whispered 
again ; “ better write it down — Bethuel Head.” And when 
Wainwright, who generally did imperturbably whatever other 
people asked him to do, finding it in the end the least trouble, 
finally did write it down, the little man seemed relieved. 
“ Their blood has dyed the pure mountain-streams,” he whis- 
pered solemnly, as the coach crept down a dark gorge with 
the tree-branches sweeping its sides; “but I shall go out, 
yea, I shall go out as did David against Goliath, and save one 
man — one ! ” 

“ Do,” said Stephen. What the little brother meant he 
neither knew nor cared to know ; going through life without 
questions he had found to be the easiest way. Besides, he 
was very tired. He had never “ rejoiced in his strength,” 
even when he was young ; he had always had just enough to 
carry him through, with nothing over. The seven hours on the 
mountain-road, which climbed straight up on one side of the- 
Blue Ridge, and straight down on the other, now over solid 
rock, now deep in red clay, now plunging through a break- 
neck gorge, now crossing a rushing stream so often that the 
route seemed to be principally by water, had driven him into 
the dull lethargy which was the worst ailment he knew ; for 
even his illnesses were moderate. He fell asleep mentally, 
and only woke at the sound of a girl’s voice. 

It was twilight, and the stage had stopped at Ellerby Mill. 
Two of the ministers alighted there, to take horse and go over 
solitary roads homeward to small mountain-villages, one ten, 
one fifteen miles away. Brother Bethuel was leaning over 
the side, holding on to his tall hat, and talking down to a 
young girl who stood at- the edge of the roadway on a bank 
of ferns. 

“ Masters is better, Miss Honor,” he said, “ or was the last 
time I saw him ; I do not think there is any present danger.” 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


289 


“ I am very glad,” answered the girl with earnestness ; 
her eyes did not swerve from the little minister’s face, although 
Wainwright was now looking down too. “If we could only 
have him entirely well again ! ” 

“ He will be ! — he will be ! ” answered Brother Bethuel. 
“ Pray for him, my sister.” 

“ I do pray,” said the girl — “ daily, almost hourly.” Into 
her dark eyes, uplifted and close to him, Wainwright could 
look directly, himself unnoticed as usual ; and he read there 
that she did pray. “ She believes it,” he thought. He looked 
at her generally ; she did not appear to be either extremely 
young, or ignorant, or commonplace, exactly. “ About eigh- 
teen,” he thought. 

“ He has asked if his father has been told,” continued the 
minister. 

“ No, no ; it is better he should know nothing,” said the 
girl. “ Can you take a package, Mr. Head ? ” 

“ Yes, to-morrow. I abide to-night with Brother Beetle.” 

“ I will have it ready, then,” said the girl. 

The stage moved on, she waved her hand, and the minis- 
ter nodded energetically in return until the road curved and 
he could see her no longer. His tall hat was tightly on his 
head all this time ; politeness in the mountains is not a mat- 
ter of hat. They were but half a mile from Ellerby now, and 
the horses began to trot for the first time in eight hours. 
Brother Bethuel turned himself, and met Wainwright’s eyes. 
Now those eyes of Wainwright were of a pale color, like the 
eyes of a fish ; but they had at times a certain inflexibility 
which harassed the beholder, as, sometimes, one fish in an 
aquarium will drive a person into nervousness by simply re- 
maining immovable behind his glass wall, and staring out at 
him stonily. Brother Bethuel, meeting Wainwright’s eyes, 
immediately began to talk : 

" A fine young lady that : Miss Honor Dooris, niece of 
Colonel Eliot — the low-country Eliots, you know, one of our 
^nost distinguished families. I venture to say, sir, that strike 
13 


290 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


at an Eliot, yes, strike at an Eliot, and a thousand will rise to 
beat back the blow. It would be dangerous, sir, most dan- 
gerous, to strike at that family.” 

“ Are they troubled by — by strikers ? ” asked Stephen. 

“ Nobody ever harms anybody in this blessedly peaceful 
country of ours,” said the little minister in a loud, chanting 
voice. Then he dropped to a conversational tone again. 

“ Miss Honor has been to the library ; she is writing some 
- Reflections on the Book of Job,’ and is obliged of course to 
consult the authorities. You noticed the old library, did you 
not ? — that small building in the grove, opposite the mill ; her 
father was one of the trustees. The front steps are down, 
and she is obliged to climb in by a back window — allowable, 
of course, to a trustee’s daughter — in order to consult the au- 
thorities.” 

“ And on Job they are such as — ?” 

“ Well, the dictionaries, I reckon,” said Brother Bethuel, 
after considering a moment. “ She is not of my flock ; the 
Eliots are, of course, Episcopalians,” he continued, with an 
odd sort of pride in the fact. “ But I have aided her — I have 
aided her.” 

“ In the matter of Masters, perhaps ? ” 

Brother Bethuel glanced at his companion quickly in the 
darkening twilight. He caught him indulging in a long, tired 
yawn. 

“ I was about to say, general charity ; but the matter of 
Masters will do,” he said carelessly. “The man is a poor 
fellow up in the mountains, in whom Miss Dooris is interested. 
He is often ill and miserable, and always very poor. She 
sends him aid when she can. I am to take a bundle to-mor- 
row.” 

“ And she prays for him,” said Wainwright, beginning to 
descend as the stage stopped at the door of the village inn. 

“ She prays for all,” replied Brother Bethuel, leaning over, 
and following him down with the words, delivered in a full un- 
dertone. Brother Bethuel had a good voice ; he had preached ^ 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


291 


under the open sky among the great peaks too long to have 
any feeble tones left. 

“ I do not believe anybody ever prays for me,” was Wain- 
wright’s last thought before he came sharply into personal 
contact with the discomforts of the inn. And, as his mother 
died when he was bom, perhaps he was right. 

The next morning he wandered about and gazed at the 
superb sweep of the mountains. Close behind him rose the 
near wall of the Blue Ridge ; before him stretched the line of 
the Alleghanies going down toward Georgia, the Iron Moun- 
tains, the Bald Mountains, and the peaks of the Great Smoky, 
purple and soft in the distance. A chain of giant sentinels 
stretched across the valley from one range to the other, and 
on these he could plainly see the dark color given by the 
heavy, unmixed growth of balsam-firs around and around up 
to the very top, a hue which gives the name Black Mountain 
to so many of these peaks. 

It was Sunday, and when the three little church-bells rang, 
making a tinkling sound in the great valley, he walked over to 
the Episcopal church. He had a curiosity to see that girl’s 
eyes again by daylight. Even there, in that small house of 
God where so few strangers ever came, he was hardly no- 
ticed. He took his seat on one of the benches, and looked 
around. Colonel Eliot was there, in a black broadcloth coat 
seventeen years old, but well brushed, and worn with an air 
of unshaken dignity. The whole congregation heard him ac- 
knowledge every Sunday that he was a miserable sinner ; but 
they were as proud of him on his one leg with his crutch 
under his arm as if he had been a perfected saint, and they 
would have knocked down any man who had dared to take 
him at his Sunday word. The Colonel’s placid, dimpled wife 
was there, fanning herself with the slowly serene manner of 
her youth ; and two benches were full of children. On the 
second bench was Honor, and the man of the world watched 
her closely in his quiet, unobserved way. This was nothing 
new : Wainwright spent his life in watching people. He had 


292 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


studied hundreds of women in the same way, and he formed 
his conclusions with minutest care. He judged no one by 
impulse or intuition, or even by liking or disliking. What 
persons said was not of the slightest importance to him in 
any way : he noted what they did. The service was in prog- 
ress, and Honor was down upon her knees. He saw her con- 
fess her sins ; he saw her bow her head to receive the absolu- 
tion ; he saw her repeat the psalms ; he watched her through 
every word of the Litany ; he heard her sing ; and he noted 
her clasped hands and strong effort of recollection throughout 
the recital of the Commandments. Then he settled himself 
anew, and began to watch her through the sermon. He had 
seen women attentive through the service before now : they 
generally became neutral during the sermon. But this girl 
never swerved. She sat with folded arms looking at the 
preacher fixedly, a slight compression about the mouth show- 
ing that the attention was that of determination. The preach- 
er was uninteresting, he was tautological ; still the girl fol- 
lowed him. “ What a narrow little round of words and 
phrases it is ! ” thought the other, listening too, but weary. 
“ How can she keep up with him ? ” And then, still watch- 
ing her, he fell to noticing her dress and attitude. Poor Honor 
wore a gown of limp black alpaca, faithful, long-enduring 
servant of small-pursed respectability; on her head was a 
small black bonnet which she had fashioned herself, and not 
very successfully. A little linen collar, a pair of old gloves, 
and her prayer-book completed the appointments of her cos- 
tume. Other young girls in the congregation were as poorly 
dressed as she, but they had a ribbon, a fan, an edge of lace 
here and there, or at least a rose from the garden to brighten 
themselves withal ; this girl alone had nothing. She was tall 
and well rounded, almost majestic, but childishly young in 
face. Her dark hair, which grew very thickly — Wainwright 
could see it on the temples — seemed to have been until re- 
cently kept short, since the heavy braid behind made only one 
awkward turn at the back of the head. She had a boldly cut 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE, 


2 93 


profile, too marked for regular beauty, yet pleasant to the eye 
owing to the delicate finish of the finer curves and the dis- 
tinct arch of the lips. Her cheeks were rather thin. She had 
no grace ; she sat stiffly on the bench, and resolutely listened 
to the dull discourse. “ A good forehead,” thought Wain- 
wright, “and, thank Fortune! not disfigured by straggling 
ends of hair. * Reflections on the Book of Job,’ did he say ? 
Poor little soul ! ” 

At last the service was ended, the sermon of dull para- 
phrases over; but Wainwright did not get his look. Honor 
sat still in her place without turning. He lingered awhile ; 
but, as he never did anything, on principle, that attracted at- 
tention, he went out with the last stray members of the con- 
gregation, and walked down the green lane toward the inn. 
He did not look back : certain rules of his he would not have 
altered for the Queen of Sheba (whoever she was). But 
Brother Bethuel, coming from the Methodist meeting-house, 
bore down upon him, and effected what the Queen of Sheba 
could not have done: himself openly watching the church- 
door, he took Wainwright by the arm, turned him around, 
and, holding him by a buttonhole, stood talking to him. The 
red wagon of the Eliots was standing at the gate ; Mrs. Eliot 
was on the front seat, and all the space behind was filled in 
with children. Black Pompey was assisting his master into 
the driver’s place, while Honor held the crutch. A moment 
afterward the wagon passed them, Pompey sitting at the end 
with his feet hanging down behind. Brother Bethuel re- 
ceived a nod from the Colonel, but Madame Eliot serenely 
failed to see him. The low-country lady had been brought 
up to return the bows and salutations of all the blacks in the 
neighborhood, but whites below a certain line she did not see. 

Evidently Honor was going to walk home. In another 
moment she was close to them, and Stephen was having his 
look. The same slight flush rose in her face when she saw 
Brother Bethuel which had risen there the day before ; the 
same earnestness came into her eyes, and Stephen became 


294 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


haunted by the desire to have them turned upon himself. But 
he was not likely to have this good fortune ; all her attention 
was concentrated upon the little minister. She said she had 
the package ready ; it would be at the usual place. He would 
take it up, he replied, at sunset. She hoped the moon would 
not be hidden by clouds. He hoped so too ; but old Marcher 
knew the way. She had heard that the East Branch was up. 
He had heard so also ; but old Marcher could swim very well. 
All this was commonplace, yet it seemed to Wainwright that 
the girl appeared to derive a certain comfort from it, and to 
linger. There was a pause. 

“ This is my friend,” said Brother Bethuel at last, indicat- 
ing Stephen with a backward turn of his thumb ; “ Mr. — 
Mr.—” 

“ Wainwright,” said Stephen, uncovering ; then, with his 
straw hat in his hand, he made her a low bow, as deliberate 
as the salutations in a minuet, coming up slowly and looking 
with gravity full in her face. He had what he wanted then — 
a look ; she had never seen such a bow before. To tell 
the truth, neither had Stephen ; he invented it for the occa- 
sion. 

“ Met him on the stage," said Brother Bethuel, “ and, as 
he is a stranger, I thought, perhaps, Miss Honor, the Colonel 
would let him call round this afternoon ; he’d take it as a 
favor, I know.” There was a concealed determination in his 
voice. The girl immediately gave Stephen another look. 
“ My uncle will be happy to see you,” she said quickly. Then 
they all walked on together, and Stephen noted, under his eye- 
lashes, the mended gloves, the coarse shoe, and the rusty 
color of the black gown ; he noted also the absolute purity of 
the skin over the side of the face which was next to him, over 
the thin cheek, the rather prominent nose, the little shell-like 
ear, and the rim of throat above the linen collar. This clear 
white went down to the edge of the arched lips, and met the 
red there sharply and decidedly ; the two colors were not 
mingled at all. What was there about her that interested 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE . 


295 

him ? It was the strong reality of her religious belief. In 
the character-studies with which he amused his life he recog- 
nized any real feeling, no matter what, as a rarity, a treasure- 
trove. Once he had spent six weeks in studying a woman 
who slowly and carefully planned and executed a revenge. 
He had studied what is called religion enormously, consider- 
ing it one of the great spiritual influences of the world : he 
had found it, in his individual cases so far, mixed. Should he 
study this new specimen ? He had not decided when they 
came to the porch of the inn. There was no hurry about 
deciding, and this was his place to stop ; he never went out 
of his way. But Honor paused too, and, looking at him, said, 
with a mixture of earnestness and timidity: “You will come 
and see uncle, I hope, Mr. Wainwright. Come this after- 
noon.” She even offered her hand, and offered it awkwardly. 
As Wainwright’s well-fitting, well-buttoned glove touched for 
an instant the poor, cheap imitation, wrinkled and flabby, 
which covered her hand, he devoutly hoped she would not 
see the contrast as he saw it. She did not : a Dooris was a 
Dooris, and the varieties of kid-skin and rat-skin could not 
alter that. 

Brother Bethuel went on with Honor, but in the afternoon 
he came back to the inn to pilot Stephen to the Eliot ravine. 
Stephen was reading a letter from Adelaide Kellinger — a 
charming letter, full of society events and amusing little com- 
ments, which were not rendered unintelligible either by the 
lack of commas, semicolons, and quotation-marks, and the 
substitution of the never-failing dash, dear to the feminine 
pen. The sheets, exhaling the faintest reminiscence of sandal- 
wood, were covered with clear handwriting, which went 
straight from page to page in the natural way, without cross- 
ing or doubling or turning back. There was a date at the 
top ; the weather was mentioned ; the exact time of arrival of 
Stephen’s last letter told. It can be seen from this that Ade- 
laide was no ordinary correspondent. 

Stephen, amused and back in New York, did not care 


296 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


much about the Eliot visit ; but Brother Bethuel cared, and 
so, with his usual philosophy, Stephen went. They talked of 
the mountains, of the mountain-people, of the villagers ; then 
Brother Bethuel took up the subject of the Eliot family, and 
declaimed their praises all the rest of the way. They were 
extremely influential, they were excessively hot-tempered ; the 
State was in a peculiar condition at present, but the Eliots 
held still the old wires, and it would be extremely dangerous 
to attack the family in any way. Stephen walked along, and 
let the little man chant on. He had heard, in this same man- 
ner, pages and volumes of talk from the persons who insist 
upon telling you all about people in whom you have not the 
remotest interest, even reading you their letters and branching 
off farther and farther, until you come to regard those first 
mentioned as quite near friends when the talker comes back 
to them (if he ever does), being so much nearer than the out- 
side circles into which he has tried to convey you. Stephen 
never interrupted these talkers ; so he was a favorite prey of 
theirs. Only gradually did it dawn upon them that his still- 
ness was not exactly that of attention. The only interest he 
showed now was when the minister got down to what he 
called the present circumstances of the family. It seemed 
that they were very poor ; Brother Bethuel appeared deter- 
mined that the stranger should know precisely how poor. He 
brought forward the pathetic view. 

“ They have nothing to eat sometimes but corn-meal and 
potatoes,” he said. This made no impression. 

“ The brook rises now and then, and they live in a roar- 
ing flood ; all the small articles have more than once been 
washed away.” 

“ Any of the children ? ” inquired Wainwright. 

“ Once, when the horses were lame, I saw Honor go to 
the mill herself with the meal-sack.” 

“ Indeed ! ” 

“Yes, and carry it home again. And I have seen her 
scrubbing out the kettles.” 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


2 97 

Wainwright gave an inward shudder. “ Has she any edu- 
cation at all ? ” he asked, with a feeling like giving her money, 
and getting away as fast as possible : money, because he had 
for twenty-four hours made her in a certain way a subject of 
study, and felt as if he owed her something, especially if he 
went disappointed. 

“ Sir, she has a finished education/' responded the little 
minister with dignity ; “ she can play delightfully upon Da- 
vid’s instrument, the harp.” 

At this moment they came to the plank and the ditch. 

“ I will go no farther,” said Brother Bethuel, “and — and 
you need not mention to the Colonel, if you please, that I 
accompanied you hither.” Then he stood on tiptoe, and 
whispered mysteriously into Stephen’s ear: “As to horses, 
remember to apply to me — Brother Head, Bethuel Head. A 
note dropped into the post-office will reach me, a man on 
horseback bringing the mail up our way twice each week. 
Bethuel Head — do not forget.” He struck himself on the 
breast once or twice as if to emphasize the name, gave Ste- 
phen a wink, which masqueraded as knowing but was more 
like entreaty, and, turning away, walked back toward the vil- 
lage. 

“ An extraordinary little man,” thought the other, cross- 
ing the plank, and following the path up the ravine by the 
side of the brook. 

The Colonel sat on his high, unrailed piazza, with the red 
wagon and a dilapidated buggy drawn up comfortably under- 
neath ; Honor was with him. He rose to greet his visitor, 
and almost immediately asked if he was related to Bishop 
Wainwright. When Stephen replied that he was not, the old 
gentleman sat down, and leaned his crutch against the wall, 
with a good deal of disappointment : being a devoted church- 
man, he had hoped for a long ecclesiastical chat. But, after 
a moment, he took up with good grace the secondary subject 
of the mountains, and talked very well about them. With 
the exception of the relationship to the Bishop, he, with the 


298 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


courtesy of the South, did not ask his guest a single question : 
Stephen could have been a peddler, a tenor-singer, a carpet- 
bag politician, or a fugitive from justice, with perfect safety, 
as far as questions were concerned. 

Honor said nothing. It was refreshing to be with a girl 
who did not want to go anywhere or do anything. She had 
really asked him to come, then, merely to please the old Colo- 
nel. A girl of gold. But, alas ! the girl of gold proved 
herself to be of the usual metal, after all ; for, when half an 
hour had passed, she deliberately proposed to her uncle that 
she should take their visitor up the hill to see the view. Now, 
Stephen had been taken numerous times in his life to see 
views ; the trouble was that he always looked directly at the 
real landscape, whatever it was, and found a great deal to 
say about it, to the neglect of the view nearer his side. He 
did not think it necessary now to play his usual part of re- 
sponsive politeness to this little country-girl's open manoeuvre ; 
he could go if she insisted upon it, he supposed. So he sat 
looking down at the brim of his hat ; but noted, also, that 
even the Colonel seemed surprised. Honor, however, had 
risen, and was putting on her ugly little bonnet ; she looked 
quietly determined. Stephen rose also, and took leave for- 
mally ; he would go homeward from the hill. They started, 
he by this time weary of the whole State, and fast inclining 
toward departure early the next morning. 

He did not say much to her, or look at her ; but, in truth, 
the path through the corn was too steep and narrow for con- 
versation : they were obliged to walk in single file. When 
they had reached the summit, and Stephen was gathering to- 
gether his adjectives for his usual view-remarks, he turned 
toward his companion, and was surprised to see how em- 
barrassed she appeared ; he began to feel interested in her 
again— interested in her timid, dark eyes, and the possibilities 
in their depths. She was evidently frightened. 

“ If,” she commenced once, twice— then faltered and 
stopped. 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


299 

“Well?” said Stephen encouragingly : after all, she was 
very young. 

“ If you intend to stay in Ellerby any length of time — do 
you ? ” 

“ I really have not decided,” said Stephen, relapsing into 
coolness. 

“ I was only going to say that if you do stay, we, that is, 
I — we, I mean — shall be happy to see you here often.” 

“ Thanks.” 

“The view is considered fine,” faltered the girl, pulling 
off her gloves in desperate embarrassment, and putting them 
deep down in her pocket. 

Stephen began his view-remarks. 

“ But what I was going to say,” she continued, breaking 
in at the first pause, “ was, that if you should stay, and need 
— need horses, or a — guide, I wish you would apply to Mr. 
Head.” 

“ They are in a conspiracy against me with their horses,” 
thought Stephen. Then he threw a hot shot: “Yes; Mr. 
Head asked me the same thing. He also asked me not to 
mention that he brought me here.” 

“ No ; pray do not,” said Honor quickly. 

He turned and looked at her : she began to blush — pink, 
crimson, pink ; then white, and a very dead white too. 

“ You think it strange ? ” she faltered. 

“ Not at all. Do not be disturbed, Miss Dooris ; I never 
think anything.” 

“ Mr. Head is poor, and — and tries to make a little money 
now and then with his horses,” she stammered. 

“ So I — judged.” 

“ And I — try to help him.” 

“Very natural, I am sure.” 

He was beginning to feel sorry for the child, and her poor 
little efforts to gain a few shillings : he had decided that the 
Colonel’s old horses were the wagon-team of this partner- 
ship, and “ Marcher ’ ’ the saddle-horse. 


300 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


“ I shall certainly need horses,” he said aloud. 

“ And you will apply to Mr. Head ? ” 

She was so eager that he forgot himself, and smiled. 

“ Miss Dooris,” he said, bowing, “ I will apply to Mr. 
Head, and only to him ; I give you my word.” 

She brightened at once. 

The golden shafts of the setting sun shone full in her 
face : her dark eyes did not mind them ; she did not put up 
her hand to shield herself, but stood and looked directly into 
the glittering, brilliant western sky. He put his quizzical ex- 
pression back out of sight, and began to talk to her. She 
answered him frankly. He tested her a little ; he was an old 
hand at it. Of coquetry she gave back not a sign. Grad- 
ually the conviction came to him that she had not asked him 
up there for personal reasons at all. It was, then, the 
horses. 

When he had decided this, he sat down on a stump, and 
went on talking to her with renewed interest. After a while 
she laughed, and there came into her face that peculiar bril- 
liancy which the conjunction of dark eyes and the gleam of 
white, even teeth can give to a thin-cheeked brunette. Then 
he remembered to look at her hands, and was relieved to find 
them, although a little roughened by toil, charmingly shaped 
and finely aristocratic — fit portion of the tall, well-rounded 
figure, which only needed self-consciousness to be that of a 
young Diana. The girl seemed so happy and radiant, so im- 
personal in the marked attention she gave to him, which was 
not unlike the attention she might have given to her grand- 
father, that Wainwright recognized it at last as only another 
case of his being of no consequence, and smiled to himself 
over it. Evidently, if he wanted notice, he must, as it were, 
mount the horses. He had had no especial intention of mak- 
ing excursions among the mountains ; but that was, appar- 
ently, the fixed idea of these horse-owners. They were, for 
some reason, pleased to be mysterious ; he would be myste- 
rious also. 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


3° l 

“ I hope Mr. Head’s horses are good ones ? ” he said con- 
fidentially ; “ I shall need very good horses.” 

All her color gone instantly, and the old cloud of anxiety 
on her face again. 

“ Yes, they are good horses,” she answered ; and then her 
eyes rested upon him, and he read trouble, fear, and dislike, 
succeeding each other openly in their dark depths. 

“ Is it because I am a Northerner, Miss Dooris ? ” he said 
quietly. He had made up his mind, rather unfairly, to break 
down the fence between them by a close question, which so 
young a girl would not know how to parry. 

She started, and the color rushed up all over her face 
again. 

“ Of course, it is all right,” she answered hurriedly, in a 
low voice. “ I know that the laws must be maintained, and 
that some persons must do the work that you do. People 
can not always choose their occupations, I suppose, and no 
doubt they — no doubt you — I mean, that it can not be 
helped.” 

“May I ask what you take me for?” said Wainwright, 
watching her. 

“We saw it at once; Mr. Head saw it, and afterward I 
did also. But we are experienced ; others may not discover 
you so soon. Mr. Head is anxious to pilot you through the 
mountains to save you from danger;” 

“ He is very kind ; disinterested, too.” 

“ No,” said Honor, flushing again ; “ I assure you he 
makes money by it also.” 

“ But you have not told me what it is you take me for. 
Miss Dooris ? ” 

“ It is not necessary, is it ? ” replied Honor in a whisper. 
« You are one of the new revenue detectives, sent up here to 
search out the stills.” 

“An informer— after the moonlight whisky-makers, you 
mean ? ” 

“Yes.” 


3°2 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE . 


Wainwright threw back his head and laughed out loud, 
as he had not laughed for years. 

“ I am not sure but that it is a compliment,” he said at 
last ; “ no one has ever taken me for anything particular be- 
fore in all my life.” Then, when he was sober, “Miss Doo- 
ris,” he said, “ I am a man of leisure, residing in New York ; 
and I am sorry to say that I am an idle vagabond, with no 
occupation even so useful as that of a revenue detective.” 

In spite of himself, however, a touch of contempt filtered 
into his voice. Then it came to him how the club-men would 
enjoy the story, and again he laughed uproariously. When 
he came to himself. Honor was crying. 

ill. 

Yes, Honor was crying. The dire mistake, the contempt, 
and, worse than all, the laughter, had struck the proud little 
Southern girl to the heart. 

“ My dear child,” said Wainwright, all the gentleman in 
him aroused at once, “ why should you care for so small and 
natural a mistake ? It is all clear to me now. I gave no ac- 
count of myself coming over on the stage ; I remember, too, 
that I spoke of the moonlight whisky-makers myself, and that 
I made no effort to find out what Mr. Head was alluding 
to when he talked on in his mysterious way. It is my usual 
unpardonable laziness which has brought you to this error. 
Pray forgive it.” 

Honor cried on, unable to stop, but his voice and words 
had soothed her ; he stood beside her, hat in hand, and after 
a few moments she summoned self-control enough to dry her 
eyes and put down her handkerchief. But her eyelashes were 
still wet, her breath came tremulously, and there was a crim- 
son spot on each cheek. She looked, at that moment, not 
more than fifteen years old, and Wainwright sat down, this 
time nearer to her, determined to make her feel easier. He 
banished the subject of her mistake at once, and began talk- 
ing to her about herself. He asked many questions, and she 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


3°3 


answered them humbly, as a Lenten penitent might answer a 
father confessor. She seemed to feel as though she owed 
him everything he chose to take. She let him enter and walk 
through her life and mind, through all her hopes and plans ; 
one or two closed doors he noted, but did not try to open, 
neither did he let her see that he had discovered them. He 
learned how poor they were ; he learned her love for her un- 
cle, her Switzer’s attachment to the mountain-peaks about 
her ; he learned what her daily life was ; and he came near 
enough to her religious faith, that faith which had first at- 
tracted him, to see how clear and deep it was, like a still pool 
in a shaded glen. It was years since Stephen Wainwright 
had been so close to a young girl’s soul, and, to do him jus- 
tice, he felt that he was on holy ground. 

When at last he left her, he had made up his mind that he 
would try an experiment. He would help this child out of 
the quagmire of poverty, and give her, in a small way, a 
chance. The question was, how to do it. He remained at 
Ellerby, made acquaintances, and asked questions. He pre- 
tended this, and pretended that.- Finally, after some consid- 
eration, he woke up the old library association, reopened the 
building, and put in Honor as librarian, at a salary of two 
hundred dollars a year. To account for this, he was obliged, 
of course, to be much interested in Ellerby ; his talk was that 
the place must eventually become a summer resort, and that 
money could be very well invested there. He therefore in- 
vested it. Discovering, among other things, pink marble on 
wild land belonging to the Colonel, he bought a whole hill- 
side, and promptly paid for it. To balance this, he also 
bought half a mile of sulphur springs on the other side of the 
valley (the land comically cheap), and spoke of erecting a 
hotel there. The whole of Ellerby awoke, talked, and re- 
joiced ; no one dreamed that the dark eyes of one young girl 
had effected it all. 

Honor herself remained entirely unconscious. She was 
so openly happy over the library that Wainwright felt him- 


3°4 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


self already repaid. “It might stand against some of my 
omissions/’ he said to himself. 

One thing detained him where he was ; then another. 
He could not buy property without paying some attention to 
it, and he did not choose to send for his man of business. 
He staid on, therefore, all summer. And he sent books to 
the library now and then during the winter that followed — 
packages which the librarian, of course, was obliged to ac- 
knowledge, answering at the same time the questions of the 
letters which accompanied them. Stephen’s letters were al- 
ways formal ; they might have been nailed up on the walls of 
the library for all comers to read. He amused himself, how- 
ever, not a little over the carefully written, painstaking an- 
swers, in which the librarian remained “ with great respect ” 
his “ obliged servant. Honor Dooris.” 

The second summer began, and he was again among the 
mountains ; but he should leave at the end of the month, he 
said. In the mean time it had come about that he was teach- 
ing the librarian. She needed instruction, certainly ; and the 
steps that led up to it had been so gradual that it seemed 
natural enough now. But no one knew the hundred little 
things which had been done to make it seem so. 

What was he trying to do ? 

His cousin, Adelaide Kellinger, determined to find out that 
point, was already domiciled with her maid at the inn. There 
had been no concealment about Honor ; Wainwright had told 
Adelaide the whole story. He also showed to her the libra- 
rian’s little letters whenever they came, and she commented 
upon them naturally, and asked many questions. “ Do you 
know, I feel really interested in the child myself ? ” she said to 
him one day ; and it was entirely true. 

When he told her that he was going to the mountains 
again, she asked if he would not take her with him. “ It will 
be a change from the usual summer places ; and, besides, I 
find I am lonely if long away from you,” she said frankly. 
She always put it upon that ground. She had learned that 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


3°5 


nothing makes a man purr more satisfactorily than the hear- 
ing that the woman in whose society he finds himself particu- 
larly comfortable has an especial liking for and dependence 
upon himself ; immediately he makes it all a favor and kind- 
ness to her , and is happy. So Adelaide came with Stephen, 
and did make him more comfortable. His barren room 
bloomed with fifty things which came out of her trunks and 
her ingenuity ; she coaxed and bribed the cook ; she won the 
landlady to a later breakfast. She arranged a little parlor, and 
was always there when he came home, ready to talk to him a 
little, but not too much ; ready to divine his mood and make 
the whole atmosphere accord with it at once. They had 
been there three weeks, and of course Adelaide had met the 
librarian. 

For those three weeks she remained neutral, and studied 
the ground ; then she began to act. She sent for John Royce. 
And she threw continuous rose-light around Honor. 

After the final tableau of a spectacle-play, a second view 
is sometimes given with the nymphs and fairies all made 
doubly beautiful by rose-light. Mrs. Kellinger now gave this 
glow. She praised Honor’s beauty. 

Stephen had not observed it. How could he be so blind ? 
Why, the girl had fathomless eyes, exquisite coloring, the 
form of a Greek statue, and the loveliest mouth ! Then she 
branched off. 

“ What a beautiful thing it would be to see such a girl as 
that fall in love ! — a girl so impulsive, so ignorant of the 
world. That is exactly the kind of girl that really could die 
of a broken heart.” 

“ Could she ? ” said Stephen. 

“ Now, Stephen, you know as well as I do what Honor 
Dooris is,” said Adelaide warmly. “ She is not awakened 
yet, her prince has not made himself known to her; but, 
when he does awaken her, she will take him up to the seventh 
heaven.” 

“ That is — if she loves him.” 


3°6 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


“ She has seen so few persons ; it would not be a difficult 
matter,” said Adelaide. 

A few days later, when she told him that she was thinking 
of sending for John Royce, he made no comment, although 
she looked at him with undisguised wistfulness, a lingering 
gaze that seemed to entreat his questions. But he would 
not question, and, obedient as always to his will, she remained 
silent. 

John Royce came. He was another cousin, but a young 
one, twenty-five years old, blue-eyed and yellow-haired. He 
kept his yellow hair ruthlessly short, however, and he frowned 
more or less over his blue eyes, owing to much yachting and 
squinting ahead across the glaring water to gain an inch's 
length on the next boat. He was brown and big, with a 
rolling gait ; the edge of a boat tilted at one hair’s-breadth 
from going over entirely, was his idea of a charming seat ; 
under a tree before a camp-fire, with something more than a 
suspicion of savage animals near, his notion of a delightful 
bed. He did not have much money of his own ; he was go- 
ing to do something for himself by and by ; but Cousin Ade- 
laide had always petted him, and he had no objection to a 
hunt among those Southern mountains. So he came. 

He had met Honor almost immediately. Mrs. Kellinger 
was a welcome visitor at the Eliot home ; she seemed to make 
the whole ravine more graceful. The Colonel’s wife and all 
the children clustered around her with delight every time she 
came, and the old Colonel himself renewed his youth in her 
presence. She brought John to call upon them at once, and 
she took him to the library also ; she made Honor come and 
dine with them at the inn. She arranged a series of excur- 
sions in a great mountain-wagon shaped like a boat, and 
tilted high up behind, with a canvas cover over a framework, 
like a Shaker bonnet, and drawn by six slow-walking horses. 
The wagoner being a postilion, they had the wagon to them- 
selves ; they filled the interstices with Eliot children and 
baskets, and explored the wilder roads, going on foot up the 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


3°7 


steep banks above, drinking from the ice-cold spring, looking 
out for rattlesnakes, plucking the superb rhododendrons and 
the flowers of the calico-bush, and every now and then catch- 
ing a new glimpse of the unparalleled crowd of peaks over to- 
ward the Tennessee line. Stephen went everywhere patiently ; 
Honor went delightedly; John Royce went carelessly; Mrs. 
Kellinger went as the velvet string which held them all to- 
gether ; she was so smooth that they slid easily. 

But, in the intervals, Wainwright still taught his librarian. 

Mrs. Eliot had become Adelaide’s warm friend. The 
sweet-voiced Southern wife, with her brood of children, and 
her calm, contented pride, confided to the Northern stranger 
the one grief of her life, namely, that she was the Colonel’s 
second wife, and that he had dearly loved the first ; anxiety 
as to the uncertain future of her children weighed far less 
upon her mind than this. The old-time South preserved the 
romance of conjugal love even to silver hairs ; there may have 
been no more real love than at the North, but there was more 
of the manner of it. The second month came to its end ; it 
was now August. Mrs. Kellinger had sent many persons to 
the library ; she had roused up a general interest in it ; vil- 
lagers now went there regularly for books, paying a small 
subscription-fee, which was added to Honor’s salary. Honor 
thanked her for this in a rather awkward way. Mrs. Eliot, 
who was present, did not consider the matter of consequence 
enough for thanks. She had never even spoken to Wain- 
wright of Honor’s office of librarian, or the salary which came 
out of his pocket. Money-matters were nothing; between 
friends they were less than nothing. Stephen had two hours 
alone with his librarian every morning, when there was no 
excursion ; Mrs. Kellinger had arranged that, by inventing a 
rule and telling it to everybody in a decided tone : no one was 
expected at the library before eleven o’clock. 

“ Did you do this ? ” said Stephen, when he discovered it. 

« I did.” 

“ Why?” 


308 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


“ Because I thought you would like it,” replied Adelaide. 
He looked at her questioningly ; she answered immediately to 
the look. “ You are interested in a new study of character, 
Stephen ; you are really doing the child a world of good too ; 
although, as usual, I confess that my interest in the matter is 
confined principally to your own entertainment.” She spoke 
good-humoredly, and almost immediately afterward left him 
to himself. 

His mind ran back over a long series of little arrange- 
ments made for his pleasure on all sorts of occasions. “ She 
is the best-hearted woman in the world,” he thought. And 
then he took his note-book and went over to the library. 

Their lessons would have amused a looker-on ; but there 
was no looker-on. Honor was interested or absent-minded, 
irritable or deeply respectful, humble or proud, by turns ; she 
regarded him as her benefactor, and she really wished to 
learn ; but she was young, and impulsive, and — a girl. There 
was little conversation save upon the lessons, with the excep- 
tion of one subject. The man of the world had begun his 
study of this girl’s deep religious faith. “ If you can give it to 
me also, or a portion of it,” he had said, “you will be confer- 
ring a priceless gift upon me, Miss Honor.” 

Then Honor would throw down her books, clasp her 
hands, and, with glowing cheeks, talk to him on sacred sub- 
jects. Many a time the tears would spring to her eyes with 
her own earnestness ; many a time she lost herself entirely 
while pleading with her whole soul. He listened to her, 
thanked her, and went away. Only once did he show any 
emotion : it was when she told him that she prayed for him. 

“ Do you really pray for me ? ” he said in a low tone ; 
then he put his hand over his eyes, and sat silent. 

Honor, a little frightened, drew back. It seemed to her a 
very simple act, praying for any one : she had prayed for peo- 
ple all her life. 

One Sunday afternoon Mrs. Eliot and Honor were sitting 
in Adelaide’s parlor at the inn, whither she had brought them 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


3°9 


on their way home from service. Royce and Stephen had 
been discovered, upon their entrance, in two chairs at the 
windows ; the former surrounded by a waste of newspapers, 
magazines, and novels, thrown down on the floor, a general 
expression of heat and weariness on his face. His compan- 
ion was reading a small, compact volume in his usual neat 
way. Big Royce was sprawled over three chairs; Stephen 
did not fill one. Big Royce was drumming on the window- 
sill; Stephen was motionless. Yet Royce, springing up and 
smiling, his blue eyes gleaming, and frank gladness on his 
face, was a picture that women remember ; while Stephen, 
rising without change of expression, was a silent contradic- 
tion to their small power, which is never agreeable. They all 
sat talking for an hour, Mrs. Eliot and Mrs. Kellinger con- 
tributing most of the sentences. Royce was in gay spirits ; 
Honor rather silent. Suddenly there came a sharp, cracking 
sound ; they all ran to the window. Through the main street 
of the village a man was running, followed by another, who, 
three times in their sight and hearing, fired at the one in ad- 
vance. One, two, three times they saw and heard him fire, 
and the sickening feeling of seeing a man murdered in plain 
sight came over them. Royce rushed down to the street. 
The victim had fallen ; the other man was himself staggering, 
and in the hands of a crowd which had gathered in an in- 
stant. After a short delay the two men were borne away, one 
to his home, one to the jail. Royce returned hot and breath- 
less. 

“ Oh, how is the poor man who was shot ? ” exclaimed 
Mrs. Eliot. 

“Poor man, indeed! The other one is the man to be 
pitied,” said Royce angrily. “ He is a revenue detective, and 
was knocked down from behind with a club by this fellow, 
who is a liquor-seller here in the village. The blow was on 
the skull, and a murderous one. Half blinded and maddened, 
he staggered to his feet, drew his revolver, and fired for his 
life.” 


3i° 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


Honor had grown white as ivory. She shook in every 
limb, her lips trembled, and her chin had dropped a little. 
Wainwright watched her. 

“ But what does it all mean ? ” asked Adelaide. 

“ Moonlight whisky, of course. The detective has been 
hunting for the stills, and these outlaws will kill the man as 
they have killed half a dozen before him.” 

“ What an outrage ! Are there no laws ? ” 

“ Dead letters.” 

“ Or officers to execute them ? ” 

“ Dead men.” 

Royce was excited and aroused. He was young, and had 
convictions. The laws should not be over-ridden and men 
murdered in broad daylight by these scoundrels while he was 
on the scene. He took charge of the detective, who, with his 
bruised head, was put in jail, while the liquor-seller was al- 
lowed to have his illness out in his own house, one of the 
balls only having taken effect, and that in a safe place in the 
shoulder. Royce, all on fire for the side of justice, wrote and 
telegraphed for troops, using the detective’s signature ; he 
went himself fifteen miles on horseback to send the dispatch. 
There were troops at the State capital ; they had been up to 
the mountains before on the same business ; they were, in- 
deed, quite accustomed to going up ; but they accomplished 
nothing. The outlaws kept themselves carefully hidden in 
their wild retreats, and the village looked on as innocently as 
a Quaker settlement. A detective was fair game: two of 
them had been shot in the neighborhood within the previous 
year, and left bleeding in the road. Would they never learn, 
then, to keep out of the mountains ? 

“ But is it not an extraordinary state of things that a vil- 
lage so large as Ellerby should be so apathetic?” asked 
Adelaide. 

“ The villagers can do little : once off the road, and you 
are in a trackless wilderness,” said Stephen. “ Custom makes 
law in these regions : moonlight whisky has always been 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


3ii 

made, and the mountaineers think they have a right to make 
it. They look upon the revenue-men as spies.” 

“Yes; and they are government officials and Northerners 
too,” added Royce hotly — “ mind that ! ” 

He had taken the matter in hand vigorously. He wrote 
and sent off a dozen letters per day. The Department at 
Washington had its attention decisively called to this district 
and the outlawry rampant there. It was used to it. 

In a week the troops came — part of a company of infantry 
and a young lieutenant, a tall stripling fresh from West Point. 
His name was Allison ; he lisped and wore kid-gloves ; he 
was as dainty as a girl, and almost as slender. To see the 
short, red-faced, burly detective, with his bandaged head and 
stubbed fingers ; Royce, with his eagle eyes and impatient 
glance ; and this delicate-handed, pink-cheeked boy, confer- 
ring together, was like a scene from a play. The detective, 
slow and cautious, studied the maps ; Royce, in a hot hurry 
about everything, paced up and down ; Allison examined his 
almond-shaped nails and hummed a tune. The detective had 
his suspicions concerning Eagle Knob ; the troops could take 
the river-road, turn off at Butter Glen, and climb the moun- 
tain at that point. In the mean while all was kept quiet ; it 
was given out that the men were to search South Gap, on the 
other side of the valley. 

On the very night appointed for the start, an old lady, who 
had three granddaughters from the low country spending the 
summer with her, opened her house, lit up her candles, and 
gave a ball, with the village fiddlers for musicians and her 
old black cook’s plum-cake for refreshments. Royce was to 
accompany the troops ; Adelaide had not been able to pre- 
vent it. She went to Stephen in distress, and then Stephen 
proposed to Royce to send half a dozen stout villagers in his 
place — he, Stephen, paying all expenses. 

“There are some things, Wainwright, that even your 
money can not do,” replied Royce. 

“ Very well,” said Stephen. 


3 12 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE . 


Royce now announced that they must all go to the ball to 
divert suspicion ; Allison too. But Allison had no invitation. 
Royce went to Mrs. Eliot, and begged her influence ; Mrs. 
Eliot sent Honor to the old lady, and the invitation came. 

“If he could avoid wearing his uniform — ” suggested 
Mrs. Eliot to Adelaide, a little nervously. 

“ But he has nothing else with him, I fear,” answered 
Adelaide. 

It turned out, however, that the lieutenant had a full even- 
ing-suit in his valise, with white tie and white gloves also. 
Royce surveyed these habiliments and their owner with won- 
der. He himself, coming from New York, with all the bag- 
gage he wanted, had only a black coat. His costume must 
be necessarily of the composite order ; but ther composite or- 
der was well known at Ellerby. 

Allison was the belle of the ball. He danced charmingly, 
and murmured the most delightful things to all his partners 
in rapid succession. He was the only man in full evening- 
dress present, and the pink flush on his cheeks, and his tall, 
slender figure swaying around in the waltz, were long remem- 
bered in Ellerby. Honor was there in a white muslin which 
had been several times washed and repaired ; there was no 
flow to her drapery, and she looked awkward. She was pale 
and silent. Mrs. Kellinger, clothed to the chin and wrists, 
with no pronounced color about her, was the one noticeable 
woman present. Royce did not dance. He found the rooms 
hot and the people tiresome ; he was in a fever to be off. 
Stephen sat on the piazza, and looked in through the window. 
At one o’clock it was over. Allison had danced every dance. 
He went back to the inn with his pockets stuffed with gloves, 
withered rose-buds, knots of ribbon, and even, it was whis- 
pered, a lock of golden hair. The next hour, in the deep 
darkness, the troops started. 

At five minutes before eleven the next morning, Stephen 
was bringing his algebra-lesson to a close, when a distant 
clatter in the gorge was heard, a tramping sound ; men were 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


3 1 3 


running out of the mill opposite and gazing curiously up the 
road. Honor was at the window in a flash, Stephen beside 
her. The troops were returning. They had laid hands upon 
a mountain-wagon and marched upon each side of it like a 
guard of honor. Royce sat in the wagon, his face hidden in 
his hands. 

“ Where is Mr. Allison ? ” said Honor, and her voice was 
but a whisper. She stood back of the curtain, trembling vio- 
lently. 

Royce did not look up as the procession passed the libra- 
ry ; without a word Wainwright and Honor went out, locked 
the door behind them, and followed the wagon toward the 
village. Everybody did the same ; the houses were emptied 
of their dwellers. The whole village came together to see 
the body of the boy-officer lifted out and carried into the inn. 
Allison was dead. 

The buttons on his uniform gleamed as they bore him in, 
and his white hands hung lifelessly down. He had fought 
like a tiger, they said, and had led his men on with the most 
intrepid, daring courage to the very last. It seemed that they 
had fallen into an ambuscade, and had accomplished nothing. 
Singularly enough, the young lieutenant was the only one 
killed ; Royce was sure that he had seen one of the outlaws 
deliberately single him out and fire — a dark, haggard-looking 
fellow. 

Stephen took Honor up to Adelaide’s parlor. Adelaide 
was there wringing her hands. She had fastened the boy’s 
collar for him at two o’clock the night before, when he had 
rather absurdly pretended that he could not make it stay but- 
toned ; and she had tapped him on the cheek reprovingly for 
his sentimental looks. “ This ball has spoiled you, foolish 
boy,” she had said; “march off into the mountains and get 
rid of this nonsense.” Ah, well, he was well rid of it now ! 

Honor stood as if transfixed, listening. Presently the door 
opened, and Royce came in. “ Let me get somewhere where 
I am not ashamed to cry,” he said ; and, sinking down, he 
H 


UP 7N THE BLUE RIDGE. 


3H 

laid his head upon his arms on the table and cried like a child. 
Honor went out of the room hastily ; she hardly noticed that 
Stephen was with her. When she reached the ravine, she, 
too, sank down on the grass, out of sight of the house, and 
sobbed as though her heart would break. Stephen looked at 
her irresolutely, then moved away some paces, and, sitting 
down on a stump, waited. Honor had danced with Allison : 
could it be — but no ; it w r as only the sudden horror of the 
thing. 

Allison was buried in the little village churchyard ; the 
whole country-side came to the funeral. The old Episcopal 
rector read the burial-service, and his voice shook a little as 
the young head was laid low in the deep grave. Brother 
Bethuel had come down from the mountains on Marcher, and 
had asked 'permission to lead the singing ; he stood by the 
grave, and, with uncovered head and uplifted eyes, sang with 
marvelous sweetness and power an old Methodist hymn, in 
which all the throng soon joined. The young girls who had 
danced at the ball sobbed aloud. Honor alone stood tearless ; 
but she had brought her choicest roses to lay over the dead 
boy’s feet, where no one could see them, and she had stooped 
and kissed his icy forehead in the darkened room before he 
was carried out : Stephen saw her do it. After the funeral. 
Brother Bethuel and Honor went away together ; Stephen re- 
turned to the inn. Adelaide had taken upon herself the task 
of answering the letters. Allison had no father or. mother, 
but his other relatives and friends were writing. Royce, his 
one young burst of grief over, went about sternly, his whole 
soul set on revenge. Now troops came : an officer of the 
United States army had been killed, and the Department was 
aroused at last. There were several officers at Ellerby now, 
older men than Allison and more experienced ; a new expe- 
dition was to be sent into the mountains to route these ban- 
ditti and make an end of them. Royce was going as guide ; 
he knew where the former attack had been made, and he 
knew, also, the detective’s reasons for suspecting Eagle Knob, 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


315 


the detective himself being now out of the field, owing to 
brain-fever: the United States authorities had ordered him 
out of jail, and he was at the inn, having his fever comfor- 
tably on the ground-floor. Honor was with Adelaide almost 
constantly now. The elder woman, who always received her 
caressingly, seemed puzzled by the girl’s peculiar manner. 
She said little, but sat and listened to every word, turning her 
dark eyes slowly from one speaker to the next. Royce came 
and went, brought in his maps, talked, and every now and then 
made the vases on the table ring as he brought down his 
strong hand with an emphasis of defiance. 

“ I can not study,” Honor had said to Stephen when he 
made some allusion to their morning hours. She said it sim- 
ply, without excuse or disguise ; he did not ask her again. 

The expedition was to start on Monday night. The whole 
village, in the mean time, had been carefully intrusted with 
the secret that it was to go on Tuesday. But on Sunday 
evening Honor discovered that before midnight the hounds 
were to be let slip. The very soldiers themselves did not 
know it. How did the girl learn it, then? She divined it 
from some indefinable signs in Royce. Even Adelaide did 
not suspect it ; and Stephen saw only the girl’s own restless- 
ness. She slipped away like a ghost — so like one that Stephen 
himself did not see her go. He followed her, however, almost 
immediately ; it was too late for her to go through the village 
alone. He was some distance behind her. To his surprise, 
she did not go homeward, but walked rapidly down toward 
the river-road. There was fickle moonlight now and then ; 
he dropped still farther behind, and followed her, full of con- 
jecture, which was not so much curiosity as pain. It was 
still early in the evening, yet too late for her to be out there 
on the river-road alone. This innocent young girl— this child 
— where, where was she going ? He let her walk on for a 
mile, and then he made up his mind that he must stop her. 
They were far beyond the houses now, and the road was 
lonely and wild ; the roar of the river over its broad, rock- 


3 l6 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


dotted, uneven bed, hid the sound of his footsteps as he 
climbed up the steep bank, ran forward, and came down into 
the road in advance of her. 

“ Where are you going, Miss Honor ? ” he said, showing 
himself, and speaking quietly. 

She started back, and gasped out his name. 

“ Yes, it is I,” he answered, “ Stephen Wainwright. I am 
alone ; you need not be frightened.” 

She came close up to him and took his hand. 

“ Do not stop me,” she said entreatingly. “ I am on an 
errand of life and death ! ” 

“ I will go in your place, Honor.” 

“ You can not.” 

“ Yes, I can. But you shall not.” 

“ Will you betray me, then ? ” she said, in an agonized 
tone. 

“ No ; but you will tell me what it is, and I will go for 
you.” 

“ I tell you, you can not go.” 

“ Why ? ” 

“You do not know; and, besides — you would not.*’ 

“ I will do anything you ask me to do,” said Stephen. 

“ Anything ? ” 

“ Anything.” 

She hesitated, looking at him. 

“ Do you give me your word ? ” 

“ I do.” 

“ But — but it is an enormous thing you are doing for me.” 

“ I know it is.” 

“ Oh, let me go — let me go myself ! ” she cried suddenly, 
with a half sob ; “ it is so much better.” 

“ I will never let you go,” said Stephen. His voice was in- 
flexible. She surveyed him tremulously, hopelessly ; then sank 
down upon her knees, praying, but not to him. Stephen took 
off his hat, and waited, bareheaded. It was but a moment ; 
then she rose. “ My cousin, Richard Eliot, my uncle’s eldest 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


317 


son, has been with these men, at one of their hiding-places, 
for some months. My uncle knows nothing of it ; but Brother 
Bethuel is in the secret, and keeps watch of him.” 

“ Your cousin is Masters, then ? ” 

“ He is. Ask no more questions, but hasten on ; take the 
first broad trail which leaves the road on the right, follow it 
until you come to Brother Bethuel’s house ; you can not miss 
it ; it is the only one. He will guide you to the place where 
Richard is, and you must warn him that the troops are com- 
ing.” 

“ Only one question, Honor. Come out into the moon- 
light ; give me both your hands. Do you love this man ? ” 

He looked at her fixedly. She gave a quick, strong start, 
as though she must break away from him at all hazards, and 
turned darkly red, the deep, almost painful, blush of the 
brunette. Her hands shook in his grasp, tears of shame rose 
in her eyes ; it was as though some one had struck her in the 
face. 

“Do you love this Eliot?” repeated Stephen, compelling 
her still to meet his eyes. 

She drew in her breath suddenly, and answered, with a 
rush of quick words : “No, no, no ! Not in the way you 
mean. But he is my cousin. Go ! ” 

He went. Nearly two miles farther down the road the 
trail turned off ; it climbed directly up a glen by the side of a 
brook which ran downward to the river in a series of little 
waterfalls. It was wide enough for a horse, and showed the 
track of Marcher’s hoofs. It came out on a flank of the 
mountain and turned westward, then northward, then straight 
up again through the thick woods to a house whose light 
shone down like a beacon, and guided him. 

Wainwright knocked ; Brother Bethuel opened, started 
slightly, then recovered himself, and welcomed his guest 
effusively. 

“ Is there any one in the house besides ourselves ? ” said 
Stephen, ignorant as to whether there was or was not a Mrs. 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE, 


318 

Head. There was ; but she had gone, with her five offspring, 
to visit her mother in Tennessee. 

“ Then,” said Stephen, “ take me immediately to Richard 
Eliot.” 

The little minister stared innocently at his guest. 

“ Take you where ? ” he repeated, with surprised face. 

“ Come,” said Stephen, “ you need not conceal. Miss 
Dooris herself sent me. I am to warn this Eliot that the 
troops are on the way — have probably already left Ellerby.” 

The little man, convinced, sprang for his lantern, lighted 
it, and hurried out, followed by Wainwright. He ran more 
than he walked; he climbed over the rocks; he galloped 
down the gullies and up the other side ; he said not a word, 
but hurried, closely followed by Stephen, who was beginning 
to feel spent, until he reached the foot of a wall of rock, the 
highest ledge of Eagle Knob. Here he stood still and whistled. 
Stephen sat down, and tried to recover his breath. After a 
moment or two a whistle answered from above, and the mis- 
sionary imitated the cry of a night-bird, one, two, three times. 
He then sat down beside Wainwright, and wiped his fore- 
head. “ He will be here in a moment,” he said. In a short 
time, coming up as if from the bowels of the mountain, a 
figure stood beside them. Brother Bethuel had closed the 
slide of his lantern, and Wainwright could not see the face. 
“ Miss Dooris sent me,” he began. “ I am to warn you that 
the troops are on their way hither to-night, and that they have 
a clew to your hiding-place.” 

“ Who are you ? ” said the man. 

“ I am Miss Dooris’s messenger ; that is enough.” 

The man muttered an oath. 

Brother Bethuel lifted up his hands with a deprecating 
gesture. 

“You do not mean it, Richard ; you know you do not. — 
Lord, forgive him ! ” he murmured. 

“ Well, what am I to do ? ” said the man. “ Did she send 
any word ? ” 


UP IN THE BLUE RipGE. 


319 


“ Only that you must escape.” 

“ Escape ! Easy enough to say. But where am I to go ? 
Did she send any money ? ” 

“ She will,” said Stephen, improvising. 

“ When ? ” 

“To-morrow.” 

“ How much ? ” 

“ Quite a sum ; as much as yo\i need.” 

“ Is she so flush, then ? ” 

“ She is, as you say — flush,” replied Stephen. 

Brother Bethuel had listened breathlessly to this conversa- 
tion ; and when Eliot said, fretfully, “ But where am I to go 
now — to-night ? ” he answered : “ Home with me, Dick. I 
can conceal you for one night ; nobody suspects me. The 
Lord will forgive ; it is an Eliot.” 

“ Wait until I warn the fellows, then,” said the man, dis- 
appearing suddenly in the same way he had appeared. Then 
Stephen, who had not risen from his seat, felt a pair of arms 
thrown around his neck; the little brother was embracing 
him fervently. 

“ God bless you ! God bless you ! ” he whispered. “ We 
will get him safely out of the country this time, with your aid, 
Mr. Wainwright. An Eliot, mind you ; a real Eliot, poor 
fellow ! ” 

But the real Eliot had returned, and Brother Bethuel led 
the way down the mountain. They walked in single file, and 
Stephen saw that the man in front of him was tall and power- 
ful. They reached the house, and the minister took the fugi- 
tive down into his cellar, supplying him with food, but no 
light. 

“ Make no sound,” he said. “ Even if the house is full of 
soldiers, you are safe ; no one suspects me.” He closed the 
horizontal door, and then turned to Wainwright. “ What are 
you going to do ? ” he asked, his small face wrinkled with 
anxiety. 

“ I am going back to Ellerby.” 


3 20 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


“ And when will you return with the money ? ” 

“ Some time to-morrow.” 

“I will go with you as far as the road,” said Brother 
Bethuel ; “ I want to see if the troops are near.” 

“ Who is this Eliot ? ” asked Stephen, as they went down 
the glen. 

“ The Colonel’s eldest son, the only child by the first wife. 
His father has heard nothing of him for several years ; it is 
the grief of the old man’s life.” 

“ What is he doing here ? ” 

“Well, he is a wild boy — always was,” said Brother 
Bethuel reluctantly. “ Lately he has been living with a gang 
of these whisky-men.” 

“ And Miss Dooris knows it ? ” 

“ Yes. He was always fond of Honor when she was a 
child, and latterly he has — has fallen into a way of depending 
upon her.” 

“ Why does he not come out of the woods, go to work, 
and behave like a civilized man ? ” said Wainwright, in a tone 
of disgust. “ I have no patience with such fellows.” 

“ Oh, yes, you have,” said Brother Bethuel earnestly. 
“ You are going to help him, you know.” 

“ Well, we will send him far enough away this time — to 
Australia, if he will go,” said Stephen. “ The country will be 
well ^d of him.” 

“ You do not, perhaps, understand exactly,” said Brother 
Bethuel timidly, after a moment’s silence. “ Eliot fought all 
through the war — fought bravely, nobly. But, when peace 
came, there seemed to be no place for him. He was not 
adapted to — to commerce ; he felt it a degradation. Hence 
his present position. But he did not choose it voluntarily; 
he — he drifted into it.” 

“ Yes, as you say, drifted,” said Stephen dryly. “ Will the 
other men get away in time ? ” 

“ Oh, yes ; they are already gone. There is a cave, and a 
passage upward through clefts in the rocks to the glen where 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


321 

their still is ; it is a natural hiding-place. But they will not 
even stay there ; they will go to another of their haunts.” 

“ Where ? ” 

“ Thank the Lord, I do not know ! really and truly, I do 
not know,” ejaculated the little minister fervently. “ My only 
interest in them, the only charge upon my conscience, has 
been Eliot himself. You do not understand, and I may not 
be able to explain it to you, Mr. Wain wright, but — I love the 
Eliots ! I have loved them all my life. I was born upon their 
land, I revered them in childhood, I honored them in youth, I 
love them in age. They bear one of our great State names ; 
they have been our rulers and our leaders for generations. I 
love them, every one.” Wainwright made no answer; the 
little man went on : “ This son has been a sad, wild boy al- 
ways — has nearly broken his father’s heart. But he is an 
Eliot still ; the little I can do for him I will do gladly until I 
die.” 

“Or until he does,” suggested Stephen. “One of this 
gang shot Allison ; was this Eliot of yours the marksman ? ” 

Brother Bethuel was silent. Stephen turned and saw by 
the lantern’s gleam the trouble and agitation on his face. 

“ He did it, I see,” said Stephen, “ and you know he did 
it. It was murder.” 

“ No, no — war,” said the missionary, with dry lips. They 
had reached the road and looked down it ; the moonlight was 
unclouded now. They could see nothing, but they thought 
they heard sounds. Brother Bethuel went back up the glen, 
and Wainwright, turning into the woods, made his way along 
in the deep shadows above the road. He met the soldiers 
after a while, marching sturdily, and remained motionless be- 
hind a tree-trunk until they had passed ; then, descending 
into the track, he walked rapidly back to the village. But, 
with all his haste and all his skill, he did not reach his room 
unobserved ; Adelaide saw him enter, and noted the hour. 

The troops came back at noon the next day, not having 
discovered the foe. Honor was with Adelaide, pretending to 


322 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE, 


sew, but her mind was astray ; Adelaide watched her closely. 
Stephen was present, quiet and taciturn as usual. He had 
succeeded in conveying to the girl, unobserved, a slip of paper, 
on which was written : “ Eliot is hidden in the cellar of Head’s 
house. I am going out there this afternoon, and you may 
feel assured that, in a day or two more, he will be out of the 
mountains, and in permanent safety.” But he had not been 
able to exchange any worde with her. 

Royce came in, foiled, tired, and out of temper. 

“ If it had not been for the little minister, we should have 
had nothing at all for our pains,” he said, when, the first an- 
noyed heat over, he, having been left in the mean while un- 
vexed by questions owing to Adelaide’s tact, began to feel 
himself like telling the story. “ He heard us down in the road, 
came to meet us, and advised us what to do. It seems that 
he too has had his suspicions about Eagle Knob, and he took 
his lantern and guided us up there. We hunted about and 
found one of their hiding-places, showing traces, too, of re- 
cent occupation ; but we could not find the men or the still. 
The troops will take rations, however, next time, and make a 
regular campaign of it : we shall unearth the scoundrels yet.” 

‘‘But you will not think it necessary to go again, John ? ” 
said Adelaide. 

“ Not necessary, but agreeable, Cousin Adelaide. I will 
not leave these mountains until the murderer of Allison is 
caught — I was going to say shot, but hanging is better,” said 
Royce. 

Honor gazed at him with helpless, fascinated eyes. Mrs. 
Kellinger noted the expression. There was evidently another 
secret : she had already divined one. 

Soon afterward Honor went home, and Stephen did not 
accompany her. Adelaide noted that. She noted also that 
he sat longer than usual in her parlor after the early dinner, 
smoking cigarettes and becoming gradually more and more 
drowsy, until at last, newspaper in hand, he sauntered off to 
his own room, as if for a siesta. It was too well acted. She 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE, 


323 


said to herself, with conviction, “ He is going out ! ” A wo- 
man can deceive admirably in little things ; a man can not. 
He can keep the secret of an assassination, but not of a clam 
supper. The very cat discovers it. Adelaide went to her 
•room, put on her trim little walking-boots and English round 
hat, and, slipping quietly out of the house, walked down the 
road to a wooded knoll she remembered, a little elevation that 
commanded the valley and the village ; here, under a tree, she 
sat waiting. She had a volume of Landor : it was one of 
Wainwright’s ways to like Landor. After half an hour had 
passed, she heard, as she had expected to hear, footsteps ; she 
looked up. Wainwright was passing. “Why — is it you?” 
she called out. “ I thought you would sleep for two hours at 
least. Sit down here awhile and breathe this delicious air 
with me.” 

Wainwright, outwardly undisturbed, left the road, came 
up the knoll, and sat down by her side. Being in the shade, 
he took off his hat and threw himself back on the grass. But 
that did not make him look any larger. Only a broad- 
shouldered, big fellow can amount to anything when lying 
down in the open air : he must crush with his careless length 
a good wide space of grass and daisies, or he will inevitably 
be overcome by the preponderant weight of Nature — the 
fathomless sky above, the stretch of earth on each side. 
Wainwright took up the volume, which Adelaide did not con- 
ceal ; that he had found her reading his favorite author se- 
cretly was another of the little facts with which she gemmed 
his life. “ What do you discover to like ? ” he asked. 

“ * His bugles on the Pyrenees dissolved the trance of Eu- 
rope ’ ; and, ‘ When the war is over, let us sail among the isl- 
ands of the yEgean and be as young as ever ’ ; and, ‘ We are 
poor indeed when we have no half-wishes left us,’ ” said Ade- 
laide, musically quoting. “ Then there is the ‘ Artemidora.’ ” 

“ You noticed that ? ” 

“Yes.” 

Meanwhile, the man was thinking, “ How can I get away 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


324 - 

unsuspected ? ” and the woman, “ How can I make him tell 
me ? ” 

They talked some time longer; then Adelaide made up 
her mind to go into action. 

Adelaide (quietly). “ There is a change in you, Stephen. 
I want you to tell me the cause.” 

Stephen. “We all change as time moves on.” 

Adelaide. “But this is something different. I have no- 
ticed—” 

Stephen . “ What ? ” 

Adelaide. “ No one observes you so closely as I do, 
Stephen : my life is bound up in yours ; your interests are 
mine. Anything that is for your happiness engrosses me; 
anything that threatens it disturbs me. Let us speak plainly, 
then : you are interested in Honor Dooris.” 

Stephen. “ I am.” 

Adelaide. “ More than that — you love her.” 

Stephen. “ What is love, Adelaide ? ” 

Adelaide (with emotion). “ It was Ralph’s feeling for me, 
Stephen. He is gone, but I have the warm memory in my 
heart. Somebody loved me once, and with all his soul.” 
(Leaning forward with tears in her eyes :) “ Take this young 
girl, Stephen ; yes, take her. She will give you what you have 
never had in your life, poor fellow ! — real happiness.” 

Wainwright was silent. 

Adelaide. “Ah ! I have known it a long time. You spent 
the whole of last summer here ; what did that mean ? You 
wrote to her at intervals all through the winter. You are 
here again. You love to study her girlish heart, to open the 
doors of her mind.” (Rapidly:) “And have I not helped 
you ? I have, I have. Was I not the quiet listener to all 
those first guarded descriptions of yours ? Did I not com- 
ment upon each and every word of those careful little letters 
of hers, and follow every possibility of their meaning out to its 
fullest extent ? All this to please you. But, when I came 
here and saw the child with my own eyes, did I not at once 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


325 


range myself really upon your side? Have I not had her 
here ? Did I not form a close acquaintance with her family ? 
Did I not give you those morning hours with her at the 
library ? And am I not here also to answer for her, to de- 
scribe her to your friends, to uphold your choice, to bring out 
and develop her striking beauty ? ” 

Stephen. “ But she is not beautiful.” 

Adelaide. “ She is. Let me dress her once or twice, and 
New York shall rave over her. I have had your interests all 
the time at heart, Stephen. Was it not I who sent for John 
Royce ? And did you not see why I sent for him ? It was 
to try her. I have given her every chance to see him, to be 
with him, to admire him. He is near her own age, and he is 
a handsome fellow, full of life and spirit. But you see as well 
as I do that she has come out unscathed. Take her, then, 
Stephen ; you can do it safely, young as she is, for the man 
she first loves she will love always.” 

As she spoke, an almost imperceptible tremor showed it- 
self around the mouth of the small, plain, young-old man who 
was lying on the grass beside her ; he seemed to be conscious 
of it himself, and covered his mouth with his hand. 

Adelaide. “ But there is something which you must tell 
me now, Stephen. You can not be in league with these out- 
laws ; is it Honor, then ? You had better tell. Her uncle 
and aunt evidently know nothing of it, and the child should 
have a woman-friend by her side. You know I would cut 
myself up into small pieces for you, Stephen ; let me be your 
ally in this, too. Is it not best for Honor that I should know 
everything ? Shall I not be her true friend when she is your 
wife — your sweet young wife, Stephen, in that old house of 
yours which we will fit up for her together, and where you will 
let me come and see you, will you not, your faithful, loving 
cousin ? ” Her voice broke ; she turned her head away. Her 
emotion was real. The man by her side, urged at last out of 
his gray reticence by his own deep longing, which welled up 
irresistibly to meet her sympathy, turned over on his arm and 


326 UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 

told her all — in a few words as regarded himself, with careful 
explanation as regarded Honor. 

“ I have the money with me now,” he said, “ and Head, 
who was so anxious to guide me, the supposed detective, away 
from Eliot, now guides me to him, relies upon me to save 
him.” 

“ And Honor knows — knows, too, that he shot Allison,” 
said Adelaide musingly. “ That was the reason why she was 
so pale, and why she brought all her roses, and kissed the 
poor boy’s forehead.” 

“ She does not know, but fears.” 

“Ah! we must help the child, Stephen; the burden of 
this is too heavy for such young shoulders. Go ; I will not 
keep you a moment longer ; I will go back to Honor. But, 
first — God bless you ! Do not put yourself into any danger, 
for my sake. I have loved you long, and years hence, when 
we are old, I shall love you just the same.” 

They were both standing now ; she came close to him, 
and laid her head upon his shoulder for an instant, tears shin- 
ing on her cheeks. He put one arm around her, touched by 
her affection ; she raised her eyes, and let him look deep into 
them for one short moment. “ He shall see the truth this 
once,” she thought; “though nothing to him now, it will 
come back to him.” 

Adelaide Kellinger did that time a bold thing; she let 
Wainwright see that she loved him, relying upon the certainty 
that he would not think she knew he saw it, much less that 
she intended him to see it. She had the balance of reality on 
her side, too, because she really did love him — in her way. 

In another moment he had left her, and was walking rap- 
idly down the river-road. Adelaide went back to the village. 

Her first step was to find out whether Honor was at home ; 
she was not. At the library, then ? Not there. “ Already 
gone to Brother Bethuel’s,” she thought. She next woke up 
Royce, laughed at his ill nature, flattered him a little, coaxed 
him into good temper, and finally told him plainly that she 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


327 


would not stand his bearishness any longer ; that he must go 
and dress himself anew, brush his hair, and come back and 
be agreeable. 

“ You will turn into a mountain outlaw yourself, if I do 
not see to you,” she said. 

“ Oh, let me off for to-day,” said Royce lazily. 

“ This moment ! ” 

She had her way : Royce took himself off, followed by the 
injunction to come back looking like an Apollo. Now, to 
make one’s self look like an Apollo is an occupation which no 
young man is in his heart above ; and, when incited thereto 
by an expressed belief from feminine lips that he has only to 
try, he generally — tries. Not long afterward Royce returned 
to the parlor looking his best, threw himself into a chair, and 
took up a book carelessly. He knew Adelaide would com- 
ment. She did. She called him “ a good boy,” touched the 
crisp, curling ends of his yellow hair, and asked why he kept 
them so short ; stroked his forehead, and said that, on the 
whole, he looked quite well. Her heart was beating rapidly 
as she chatted with him ; she listened intently ; everything de- 
pended upon a chance. Ten minutes before, she had exe- 
cuted a daringly bold action — one of those things which a 
woman can do once in her life with perfect impunity, because 
no one suspects that she can. If she will do it alone, and 
only once, there is scarcely any deed she may not accomplish 
safely. A few more moments passed, Adelaide still listening ; 
then came a shuffling step through the passage, a knock at 
the door, and, without waiting for reply, the burly figure of 
the revenue detective appeared, wrapped in a dressing-gown, 
with head still bandaged, and eyes half closed, but mind suf- 
ficiently clear to state his errand. 

“ Beg pardon,” he said ; “ is Royce here ? I can’t see 
very well. — Is that you, Royce ? Look at this.” 

He held out a crumpled piece of paper. 

“ Seems to be something, but I can’t quite make it out,” 
he said. 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


328 

Royce took it, glanced over it, cried, “ By Jove ! ” and was 
out of the room in a second. The detective went stumbling 
along after him ; he had to feel his way, being half blinded 
by his swollen eyelids. 

“ Take your pistols ! ” he called out, keeping his hand on 
the wall all the way down the passage. 

Royce had dropped the paper ; Adelaide had instantly de- 
stroyed it, and then she followed the detective. 

“ What was it ? ” she asked anxiously. 

“ Only a line or two, ma’am — from somebody in the town 
here, I suppose — saying that one of them distillers, the one, 
too, that shot Allison, was hidden in the house of that rascal- 
ly, deceiving little minister, up toward Eagle Knob. They’re 
all in league with each other, ministers or no ministers.” 

“ Who wrote it ? How do you know it is true ? ” 

“ I dun know who wrote it, and I dun know as it’s true. 
The paper was throwed into my room, through the winder, 
when there didn’t happen to be anybody around. It was 
somebody as had a grudge against this man in particular, I 
suppose. ’Twas scrawly writing, and no spelling to speak of. 
I brought it to Royce myself, because I wouldn’t trust any 
one to carry it to him, black or white, confound ’em all ! ” 

The detective had now reached the end of the passage 
and his endurance; his hand was covered with whitewash 
where he had drawn it along the wall, his head was aching 
furiously, and his slippers were coming off. “ You had just 
better go back,” he said, not menacingly, but with a dull des- 
peration, as he sat down on the first step of the stairway 
which led down to his room, and held his forehead and the 
base of his brain together : they seemed to him two lobes as 
large as bushel-baskets, and just ready to split apart. 

“ I will send some one to you,” said Adelaide, departing. 
She went to her room, darkened it, and took a long, quiet 
siesta . 

Royce dropped his information, en route , at the little 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


329 

camp in the grove, where the trim companies of United States 
infantry led their regular orderly life, to the slow wonder of 
the passing mountaineers. Who would not be a soldier and 
have such mathematically square pieces of bread, such well- 
boiled meat on a tin plate, such an exactly measured mug of 
clear coffee ? Who would not wear the light-blue trousers 
with their sharp fold of newness making a straight line to the 
very boot ? Who would not have such well-parted, shining 
hair ? So thought the mountain-boys, and rode homeward 
pondering. 

The officers in command, on principle disgusted for sev- 
eral seasons with still-hunting, which they deemed police- 
duty, were now ready to catch at any straw to avenge the 
death of Allison. The mountaineers and the detectives might 
fire at each other as long as they enjoyed the pastime ; but 
let them not dare to aim at an army-officer — let them not 
dare ! They were astir at once, and called to Royce to wait 
for them ; but he was already gone. 

Stephen had a start of not quite forty minutes ; but, un- 
conscious of pursuit, he walked slowly, not caring to return 
before nightfall. His natural gait was slow ; his narrow chest 
did not take in breath widely, as some chests do, and, slight 
as his figure was, he labored if hurried. His step was short 
and rather careful, his ankles and feet being delicate and 
small. There was no produced development of muscle on 
him anywhere ; he had always known that he could not afford 
anything of that kind, and had let himself alone. As he now 
walked on, he dreamed. Adelaide’s words rang in his ear ; 
he could not forget them. “ A woman reads a woman,” he 
said to himself. “ Adelaide thinks that I can win her.” Then 
he let his thoughts go : “ At last my life will have an object ; 
this sweet young girl will love me, and love me for myself 
alone ; she is incapable of any other feeling.” He was very 
human, after all ; he longed so to be loved ! His wealth and 
his insignificance had been two millstones around his neck all 
his life ; he had believed nobody. Under every feeling that 


33 ° 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


had ever come to him lurked always, deepest of all, suspicion. 
Now, late in life, in this far-off wilderness, he had found some 
one in whom he believed. 

He pleased himself with the thought of the jewels he 
would give her ; he journeyed with her in fancy through the 
whole of the Old World. The moisture came to his eyes as 
he imagined how she would pray morning and night just the 
same, and that he would be there to see her ; he said to him- 
self that he would never laugh at her, but would bring his 
unbelieving heart and lay it in her hand : if she could mold 
it, well and good, she might ; he would be glad. So he walked 
on, down the river-road, his long-repressed, stifled hope and 
love out of bonds at last. 

A sound fell on his dulled ear, and brought him back to 
reality ; it was a footstep. “ I had better not be seen,” he 
thought, and, climbing up the bank, he kept on through the 
thick hillside-forest. After a moment or two, around the 
curve came John Royce, walking as if for a wager ; two pis- 
tols gleamed in the belt he had hastily buckled around his 
waist, and the wrinkle between his eyes had deepened into a 
frown. 

“ It can not be possible ! ” thought Wain wright. But 
rapid reflection convinced him that, impossible as it seemed, it 
might be true, and that, in any case, he had not a moment to 
lose. He was above Royce, he was nearer the trail to Brother 
Bethuel’s, and, what was more, he was familiar with all its 
turnings. “ Not to be able to save Eliot ! ” he thought, as he 
hurried forward over the slippery, brown pine-needles. And 
then it came to him how much he had relied upon that to 
hold Honor, and he was ashamed. But almost immediately 
after rose to the surface, for the first time in his life, too, the 
blunt, give-and-take feeling of the man as a man, the thought 
— “ You are doing all this for her ; she ought to repay you.” 
He hardly knew himself ; he was like Bothwell then, and other 
burly fellows in history ; and he was rather pleased to find 
himself so. He hastened across a plateau where the footing 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


331 


was better ; he had turned farther up the mountain-side, so 
that Royce could not by any possibility hear him as he brushed 
hastily through the undergrowth, or stepped on crackling twigs 
or a rolling stone. The plateau soon ended, and the slanting 
hillside slanted still more steeply. He pushed on, keeping his 
breath as well as he was able, running wherever he could, 
climbing over rocks and fallen trees. He was so far above 
the road now that he could not see Royce at all, but he kept 
his efforts up to the task by imagining that the young man 
was abreast of him below — which was true. He began to 
pant a little. The sleeve of his flannel coat had been held 
and torn by a branch ; he had tripped on a round stone, and 
grazed his knee. He was very tired ; he began to lope as the 
Indians do, making the swing of the joints tell ; but he was 
not long enough to gain any advantage from that gait. At 
last he met the trail, and turned up the mountain ; the ascent 
seemed steeper now that he was out of breath. His throat 
was dry; surely, he had time to drink from the brook. He 
knelt down, but before he could get a drop he heard a sound 
below, and hurried on. Alarmed, he sprang forward like a 
hare ; he climbed like a cat, he drew himself up by his hands ; 
he had but one thought — to reach the house in time. His 
coat was torn now in more places than one ; a sharp edge of 
rock had cut his ankle so that his stocking was spotted with 
red above the low walking-shoe. The determination to save 
Eliot drove him on like a whip of flame: he did not know 
how much Royce knew, but feared everything. His face had 
a singular appearance : it was deeply flushed, the teeth were 
set, the wrinkles more visible than ever, and yet there was a 
look of the boy in the eyes which had not been there for 
years. He was in a burning heat, and breathed with a regu- 
lar, panting sound ; he could hear the circulation of his own 
blood, and began to see everything crimson. The trail now 
turned straight up the mountain, and he went at it fiercely ; 
he was conscious of his condition, and knew that he might 
fall in a fit at the house-door : never mind, if he could only get 


33 2 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


there ! His eyes were glassy now, his lips dry. He reached 
the house, opened the door, and fell into a chair. Brother 
Bethuel, in alarm, sprang up and brought him a dipper full of 
water as quickly as hand could fill the tin. Brother Bethuel 
believed in water, and this time Wainwright agreed with him ; 
he swallowed every drop. 

“ Where is he ? ” he said then, already on his feet again, 
though staggering a little. Brother Bethuel pointed down- 
ward, and Wainwright, with a signal toward the glen, as 
if of near danger, disappeared. The cellar was dimly light- 
ed by two little windows a foot square, and the man 
who entered made out two figures : one was Eliot, the other 
Honor. 

“ You ! ” said Wainwright. 

“ Did you not know that I would come ? ” said the girl. 

He had not known it, or thought of it. He turned his 
eyes toward the other figure ; everything still looked red. He 
held out a pocket-book. 

“ Go ! ” he said ; “ Royce is on your track ! ” 

He spoke in a whisper ; his voice had left him as he gained 
breath. Eliot, a dark-skinned, handsome, but cutthroat-look- 
ing fellow, seized the money and sprang toward the door. 
But Honor sprang too, and held him back ; she had heard 
something. The next moment they all heard something — 
Royce coming in above. 

When the youth entered, Brother Bethuel was quietly 
reading his Bible ; the table on which it lay was across the 
cellar-door. 

“ Welcome,’' said the little missionary, rising. “ I am 
happy to see you, Mr. Royce.” 

The place looked so peaceful, with the Bible, the ticking 
clock, and the cat, that Royce began to think it must be all a 
mistake. He sat down for a moment to rest, irresolute, and 
not quite knowing what to say next. The three, close under 
the thin flooring down below, did not stir, hardly breathed. 
Stephen was thinking that, if Royce could know the truth, he 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


333 

too would let Eliot go. But there was not much time for 
thought. 

Brother Bethuel brought out some apples, and began to 
converse easily with his visitor. After a while he said, depre- 
catingly : 

“ Will you not remove your pistols to the window-seat 
behind you, Mr. Royce ? From my youth, I could never 
abide the proximity of fire-arms of any kind. They distress 
me.” 

Royce good-naturedly took them out of his belt, and 
placed them behind him, but within easy reach. The mis- 
sionary was on the opposite side of the room. 

Not a sound below. Wainwright was breathing with his 
mouth wide open, so as not to pant. He was still much 
spent. 

But it could not last long ; Royce felt that he must search 
the house, even at the risk of offending the little mission- 
ary. 

“ Mr. Head,” he said, awkwardly enough, “ I am very 
sorry, but — but a communication has been received stating 
that one of the outlaws, and the one, too, who shot poor 
Allison, is concealed here, in this house. I am very sorry, 
but — but I must search every part of it immediately.” 

Brother Bethuel had risen ; his countenance expressed 
sorrow and surprise. 

“ Young man,” he said, “ search where and as you please • 
but spare me your suspicions.” 

There was a dignity in his bearing which Royce had not 
seen before ; he felt hot and ashamed. 

“ Indeed, Mr. Head, I regret all this,” he said; “and, of 
course, it is but a matter of form. Still, for my own satis- 
faction, and yours, too, now I must go through the house.” 

He rose and moved a step forward. Quick as lightning 
the little missionary had sprung behind him, and pushed the 
pistols over the sill, through the open window, down forty 
feet on the rocks below. 


334 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


“ Traitor ! ” cried Royce, grappling him. 

But it was too late ; the pistols were gone. Brother Beth- 
uel glowed openly with triumph ; he made no more resistance 
in Royce’s strong arms than a rag. The young man soon 
dropped him, and, hearing a sound below, ran to the cellar- 
door. 

“ He has no pistols ! ” screamed Bethuel down the stair 
after him : “you can manage him ; he is alone." 

Then, setting all the doors wide open, so that escape 
would be easy, he ran out to saddle Marcher. 

Down below, in the cellar, Stephen had caught hold of 
Royce’s arm. Royce, full in the narrow entranceway, stood 
glaring at Eliot, and minding Stephen’s hold no more than 
the foot of a fly. The light from the horizontal door above 
streamed in and showed Eliot’s dark face and Honor’s dilated 
eyes. The girl stood near her cousin, but slightly behind him 
as though she feared his gaze. 

“You are the man I want,” said Royce; “I recognize 
you ! ” His strong voice came in among their previous whis- 
pers and bated breath, as his face came in among their three 
faces — Honor’s ivory-pallid cheeks,, the outlaw’s strained at- 
tention, and Stephen’s gray fatigue, more and more visible 
now as he gained breath and sight. “Yield yourself up. 
We are two to your one.” 

“We are two to your one,” answered Eliot: “that man 
beside you is for me.” 

Royce looked down with surprise upon his cousin, who 
still held his arm. 

“ No mistaken lenity now, Stephen,” he said curtly, shak- 
ing his arm free. “ I must have this man ; he shot Allison.” 

“ How are you going to do it ? ” said Eliot jeeringly, put- 
ting his hands deep down in his pockets and squaring his 
shoulders. “ Even Honor here is a match for two Yan- 
kees.” 

“ Miss Dooris, I will let you pass,” said Royce impatient- 
ly. “ Go up stairs. This is no place for a girl like you.” 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


335 


“ Say lady ! ” cried Eliot. “ She is a Southern lady, sir ! ” 

“ Bah ! ” said Royce ; “ you are a fine person to talk of 
ladies. — Are you going, Miss Dooris ? ” 

Great tears stood in Honor’s eyes ; she did not stir. 

“ She will not go, John,” said Wainwright, “ because that 
man is her cousin — he is an Eliot.” 

“ He is a murderer ! ” said Royce, filling up the doorway 
again, and measuring with his eye the breadth of his oppo- 
nent’s shoulders and muscle. “ Now, then, are you with me 
or against me, Stephen ? If against me, by Heaven ! I will 
fight you both.” 

“You do not understand, John. It is Honor’s cousin: 
that is why / am anxious to save him.” 

“ And what is her cousin or anybody’s cousin to me ? ” 
cried Royce angrily. “ I tell you that man shot Allison, and 
he shall swing for it.” 

He sprang forward as if to close with Eliot, then sprang 
back again. He remembered that it was more important 
that he should guard the door : there was no other way of 
escape. If Stephen, pursuing the extraordinary course he 
had taken in this matter, should side with Eliot, Brother 
Bethuel being a traitor too up stairs, he might not be able to 
overcome the outlaw in an attack. He set his teeth, there- 
fore, and stood still. His hat was off ; the sunset light touched 
his forehead and yellow hair; the image of strength and 
young manhood, he confronted them in his elegant attire — 
confronted the outlaw in his rough, unclean garments ; Honor 
in her old, black gown ; and Stephen in his torn clothes, his 
tired face looking yellow and withered as the face of an old 
baboon. He considered whether he could keep the door un- 
til the troops came: they would not be long behind him. 
But, if he only had his pistols ! 

His eye glanced toward Stephen ; but Stephen never car- 
ried arms. Eliot, probably, had only a knife ; if he had had 
a pistol, he would have shown it before now. All this in the 
flash of a second. 


33 6 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


Brother Bethuel could be heard bringing Marcher around 
the house. Stephen made one more effort. In a few, con- 
cise words he explained who Eliot was, and his own great 
wish to aid him in escaping. With his hand on Royce’s arm, 
he called his attention, by a gesture, to Honor. 

“ Let the man go for my sake and — hers,” he said, in a 
low voice, looking up at his young cousin with his small, pale- 
colored eyes. 

Honor clasped her hands and made a step forward ; she 
did not speak, but implored with an entreating gaze. Royce 
threw his head back impatiently. All this was nothing to 
him. He would have his man, or die for it ; they all saw 
that. 

Then Eliot, who had watched to see the result of this 
pleading, made up his mind. 

“ Stand back from the door, or I fire ! ” he cried, drawing 
out his hand, and taking aim at Royce. 

He had a pistol, then ! 

“ I give you thirty seconds ! ” 

But Honor, with a wild scream, ran forward, and threw 
herself against Royce’s breast, covering it with her shoulders 
and head, and raising her arms and hands to shield his face. 
He did not hold her or put his arm around her ; but she clung 
to him with her whole length, as a wet ribbon clings to a 
stone. 

“ Leave him. Honor ! ” cried Eliot, in a fury — “ leave him, 
or I’ll shoot you both ! ” 

“ Shoot, then ! ” said Honor, looking up into Royce’s face, 
and frantically trying to cover every inch of it with her shield- 
ing hands. 

Stephen ran and caught Eliot’s arm ; Royce, half blinded, 
tried to push the girl away ; then the sound of the pistol filled 
the room. Royce swayed and fell over heavily, carrying 
Honor with him as he went down ; a ball had entered his 
lung under the girl’s arm, in the little space left open by the 
inward curve of her waist. Eliot ran by the two, up the stair. 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


337 


and out of the house ; but, as he passed Honor, he took the 
time to strike her across the cheek, and curse her. At the 
door he found Marcher, sprang into the saddle, and rode 
away. 

Brother Bethuel, with white face, hurried down and 
stanched the blood ; he had no small knowledge of surgery 
and the healing craft, and he commanded Royce not to utter 
a syllable. Honor held the young man’s head in her lap, and 
every now and then softly took up his fallen hand. Wain- 
wright drew away, and watched her with the deepest pain of 
his life gnawing at his heart. He saw her stroke Royce’s hair 
fondly, as if she could not help it, and saw her begin to sob 
over his closing eyes and the deepening violet shadows under 
them, and then stop herself lest she should disturb him. 
Brother Bethuel was listening to the breathing with bent 
head, to find out if there was any chance for life. The house 
was as still as a tomb ; a bee came in, and hummed above 
their heads. 

“ He has a chance,” said the missionary at last, fervently, 
raising his head. “ Do not let him stir.” He ran up stairs 
for restoratives, and Wainwright sat down on a stool which 
had been Eliot’s seat during his imprisonment, and covered 
his eyes with his hand. It seemed to him that he had sat 
there a long time, and that Honor must be noticing him 
now. He glanced up ; she was gazing down at the still 
face on her lap. He stirred ; she motioned impatiently for 
silence with her hand, but did not raise her eyes. He sat 
looking at her miserably, and growing old, older with every 
moment. His lips quivered once as he silently gave up for 
ever his dream of hope and love. He passed his hand over 
his dry eyes, and sat still. By the time he was needed he 
was able to help Brother Bethuel in making Royce as com- 
fortable as possible on the cellar-floor : they dared not move 
him. 

The troops arrived in time to hear all about it — they then 
went back again. 

15 


33 8 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


Wainwright returned to Ellerby that evening. The army- 
surgeon and a nurse had been sent out immediately to the 
mountain cottage, and Colonel Eliot, distressed and agitated, 
had accompanied them. Wainwright went to his room, at- 
tired himself anew, and sought Adelaide’s parlor. Adelaide 
received him quietly ; she said nothing, but came around be- 
hind him and kissed his forehead. He looked up at her 
dumbly. Her eyes filled with tears. In her strange, double, 
woman’s way she felt sorry for his sorrow. She was con- 
scious of no guilt ; she had only precipitated matters. Honor 
would never have loved him, and it was better he should 
know it. In truth, she had saved him. 

And Honor ? Oh, she had the usual torments of young 
love ! She was no goddess to Royce, only a girl like any 
other. He was touched by her impulsive act, and during his 
long illness he began to think more and more about her. It 
all ended well ; that is, he married her after a while, took her 
away to the North, and was, on the whole, a good husband. 
But, from first to last, he ruled her, and she never became 
quite the beauty that Mrs. Kellinger intended her to be, be- 
cause she was too devoted to him, too absorbed in him, too 
dependent upon his fancies, to collect that repose and security 
of heart which are necessary to complete the beauty of even 
the most beautiful woman. 

Ellerby village sank back into quietude. Still the moon- 
light whisky is made up in the mountains, and still the revenue 
detectives are shot. The United States troops go up every 
summer, and — come back again ! The wild, beautiful region 
is not yet conquered. 

Wainwright reentered society ; society received him with 
gladness. A fresh supply of mothers smiled upon him, a 
fresh supply of daughters filed past him. He made his little 
compact remarks as before, and appeared unaltered ; but he 
let the lime-light play about him rather more continuously 
now, and took fewer journeys. He will never swerve from 
Adelaide again. As they grow older, the chances are that 


UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 


339 

some day he will say to her, “ Why should we not be mar- 
ried, Adelaide ? ” 

And she will answer, “ Why not, indeed ? ” 

This woman loved him ; the other would never have given 
him more than gratitude. What would you have ? 


THE END. 


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THE 


TURNER GALLERY. 


A SERIES OF 

One Hundred and Twenty Engravings on Steel, 

FROM THE WORKS OF 

J. 1ST. W. TURNER, TL. -A.. 


Each plate is accompanied by historical and critical remarks, compiled from 
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Two folio volumes. Price, half morocco, $ 32 . 00 ; f till morocco, $ 36 . 00 . 

Turner, the world-renowned English painter, is not only acknowledged to be 
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of the great Continental masters in landscape-art. Turner’s paintings, being 
remarkable for breadth of effect and of shadow, and brilliant representation of 
light, are peculiarly adapted for engraving. It is, indeed, remarkable that, 
although the most vivid colorist of modern times, no painter’s works are so 
susceptible of reproduction by the graver. 


/ 

THE 

POET AND PAINTER: 


Or, Gems of Art and Song*. 


A n imperial 8w volume , containing Choice Selections from the English Poets. 

Superbly illustrated with Ninety-nine Steel Engravings, printed in the best 
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